


And Then The Murders Began

by Wrong_Password



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, This Electra is different than the one in DEFCON 5.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14866068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrong_Password/pseuds/Wrong_Password
Summary: I heard a talk show on the radio talking about novels and how the second-best line for any novel would be "And then the murders began." Picture it- all your favorite books with their first lines. Now take those lines and add "And then the murders began" as the second. I always loved doing that- I don't quite so much anymore.Not after my life followed that same path- everything was great: hot boyfriend, tons of other friends...Yeah, it was great. Then, of course, somebody had to decide that they wanted to test the range of their brand new AK, right in the middle of an assembly. Yeah, not good.Now I'm stuck down here, hiding in Mrs. McGinnis's room, hoping they don't find me (again), and that I don't bleed out before the cops get here.Yeah, it's not good.If I don't bleed out, I'll probably be scarred for life. If I don't, which right now, I think is rather unlikely, then here's hoping my friends and schoolmates will tell the world about what happened here last March Fifteenth. No, scratch that, I will be scarred for life, both literally and figuratively.I hope the world remembers me....Sanguinely Yours,Electra J. Stehlen-Wilde.





	1. Prologue: Reflections

Prologue- Reflections

Dear Journal (as this is  _not_  a diary!),

I wasn't even expecting to be there that day- I had managed to catch one of the worst cases of flu that anyone at Bourne General Hospital had ever seen, but by the morning of that fateful day, I was feeling better. And so it was that I found myself in the front row of the auditorium when Lylah pulled an AK out of her bag, and then the murders began.

Just to state things for the record, I'm not quite sure that I really much care for the shrink's idea of writing a journal about that day. Apparently, it's supposed to make us feel better, some sort of resolution. Me, I don't think that I'm ever going to find any resolution. Not for shooting the shooter, and the chances are even slimmer that I'll ever manage to get over the fact that she was my best friend. Well, best friend and more.

Right, so as anyone who ever reads the paper or watches the news would know, students usually tell the police after traumas such as these that everything seemed normal- the shooter before the shooting, the attitude of the teachers (overly excited to be punishing us with the end-of-year exams), and even the weather. Normally, when you hear about something like this happening, it's overcast and lightning's coming down, or some junk like that.

Unfortunately for me, or anyone else that was trapped there in that building last March Fifteenth, the weather was perfect, and no one was expecting anything.

That was the worst trick of all.

At least I survived to tell the tale, eh?

Your best and only friend,

Electra J. Stehlen-Wilde

P.S.-I hate you!


	2. Chapter 1: Code 10-35

Like I said earlier, that day started out normally, but like hell if it stayed that way. Look, I'm sorry to whichever shrink reads this, but have some feelings for once, okay? This whole fucking mess took place less than a week ago, and the shot wounds still hurt like hell.

*sigh* As the cops always tell us, we need to start from the beginning, so that's what I'm doing. What I remember with crystal clarity about that day was that the bus was late. Normally, that wouldn't have been a big deal, but what it meant today was that no one was prepared for anything. If the school bus was late, that probably meant that something wasn't quite right, and as I know now, seeing as hindsight is a perfect twenty-twenty, it wasn't.

See, the bus was later, as I learned last night, that the school had received a threat against the students- seems some dimwit had decided to snap a pic of the pre-K students and post that to Facebook with the caption "Line them up and shoot them." Yeah, that got people riled up, and the police were on the case immediately. They cracked the account, but it was tied to a Gmail account that had been deleted, apparently.

Instead of shutting us down, like they really should have, the school- ever trusting in its students (side note- bad idea. Really bad idea.)- sent us in anyways. After all, who was to say that it wasn't just a prank?

They should have known that it wasn't, not with all of the similar threats being made against local schools. Ah, well, I suppose, that's what being an adult brings you- an absolute certainty that you can control the tiny little swath of our enormous planet over which you have jurisdiction. Let the record state that watertight, flawless, absolutely damn perfect plans will, without a doubt, spring the biggest leaps.

I'm not kidding. Test my theory, and I guarantee you'll see the same things happen to it as I do. By the time you've given up on it, it'll look like me, all shot full of holes.

Anyways, though, as I was saying, we were still in school that day, and I was sniffling and snuffling like you wouldn't believe. The snot was pouring out of by nose in buckets, and I wasn't quite sure that the doctors' 'clean bill of health' that they had given me was quite clean. Yeah, I didn't feel the greatest, but who would want to miss the end of year assembly, especially if it's their last year of public school?

Not me, that's for sure, so I gulped down as much chicken soup with garlic as I could stand, popped some cold meds, and boarded the bus, which was ten minutes behind schedule, ten minutes for her to sneak into the building and into her hidey-hole behind the stage right curtain on the stage that forms the front of our auditorium, ten minutes to plan just how, exactly, she wanted to exact sweet revenge on me.

Why, you ask? Well, let me set the record straight on my end- she was crazy, and I loved that. No, not just liked. And before anyone goes asking, I wouldn't mind having a boyfriend, either.

We had just called it off the week before, or rather, I called it off. I just didn't feel like the whole thing was working out. It wasn't that I didn't love Lylah, it was just that I couldn't see us working out as girlfriends. Just friend friends? Sure, then we might have gotten along a bit better.

It seems to me that she was pretty damn bitter with me, and guess I can understand why, but going that over the top? No fucking thanks.

When I got to school that day, late, I knew that it was going to be a bit of a sprint to make my locker before the 8:03 first period bell, and Miss Flaunton would understand, our school's buses were old and rickety, odometers reading nearly half a million miles even though they should have been auctioned off the second they ticked over 100K, but they weren't, and so it wasn't uncommon at my school for one or two or even all of them to break down first thing in the morning and need to be fixed. In that way, I figured that I'd just save myself some time and go to the auditorium instead of up to class.

I did just that- got myself a front row seat and all. That decision probably turned out to be the worst one I ever made.

Well, I walked into the auditorium, and although it's probably going to sound cliche, I could tell something was off. I don't know how, I just knew that as soon as I crossed the threshold from the hallway into the auditorium, the temperature seemed to plunge twenty degrees. Little did I know that it actually had, Lylah had buggered the room's temperature sensors. Well, I ignored that little nagging voice, told it to stuff it, and dropped my bags into the seat next to me and waited for my classmates to start filing in, which they did.

I could tell that they were as excited as I was, based on the bubbling of words that spilled out of everyone's mouths, filling the room with a cacophony of sound. My new best friend, Miguel, took the chair next to me, slinging his backpack over the armrest and dropping wearily down. "Yo, Electra," he said, brushing his bangs out from behind his glasses. "This is going to rock, right? I mean, it's our last day of school before exams, and after that, we're flyin' free, baby!" he whooped, punching one short-sleeved arm up.

Noticing my look of concern, he asked, "What's wrong, Electra? You seem like you're fretting about something. Everything okay?"

"Huh?" I snapped myself out of my stupor. "Oh, sorry, Miguel. Yeah, I'm fine, just tired is all," I said, hoping that he wouldn't ask me any more questions. Answering questions, social anything, really? Not my strong suit. Truth be told, I don't care what people think about me, I am who I am.

Right, my mind answered, but he does.

As my subconscious yammered on, I turned to Miguel, who looked like he was going to ask me something, but then shut his mouth, as if he had changed his mind.

"What?" I asked. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine, just fine," he said, rubbing his hands how his bare arms. "Just cold, Electra. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but it's pretty damn cold in here."

I nodded. "Actually, Miguel, I was just about to ask you the same thing. I take it that it's not just me, then?"

Before he can answer, Miss Flaunton walks up to me, and thankfully, she seems calm. I can't quite tell why I should feel nervous, there's just something about the cold, and the late bus, and...hell, I don't know.

"Ah, there you are, Electra," she says. I was wondering why you hadn't come up." Before I can say a word, she holds up a finger to silence me. "Let me guess," she says, gritting her teeth and rolling her sea-green eyes theatrically, "your bus broke down this morning, didn't it?"

By way of response, I nodded, and she laughed, a harsh bark of a laugh that startled me and and yet at the same time made me feel stronger inside.

"That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, and I don't suppose it should, not after putting up with the same miserable shit when I went here. I'll let you in on a little secret," she said, leaning over to whisper into my right ear, "they're still running the same buses on the line that they used when I was in pre-K. Of course, then they actually worked, but eh, that's just one of the perks of going to the poorest school in Delaware County, eh? Stupid Governor Palmieri keeps raising the tax rates and cutting school budgets.

"Look," she continues, "I'm sorry about that, and I understand. But on a different tack, are you looking forward to the end of your senior year? It's in a week, and I know that I couldn't wait to leave this hellhole of a public institution when I got the chance to."

"Yes," I say, "I really do want to escape here, but I don't think that I'm ever going to be able to if I freeze to death because the school forgot to pay the electricity bill."

She laughs, and I can tell that it's a genuine laugh, not the oh, ha ha very funny, now piss off laughs I'm used to getting from most of the people around me. "I get it, I really do. It's ridiculous, isn't it?"

Continuing the trend of me being unable to finish my sentences, Principal Benedetto (who, by the way, is blessed with nothing except for a slight paunch around the waist and a knack for perpetually bumbling on when he speaks) wanders into the room, and apparently, he notices the cold, but pretends to ignore it, and turns to face the assembled six hundred and change of us that attend Charlotte Valley Central.

"Well, well, well," he says, walking over to the podium and pushing his glasses up his nose because they keep sliding down it, "I'm glad, so very pleased, most pleased indeed, that you have all decided to attend today and come here for our end of year closing ceremony."

See what I mean? The guy's a bumbling thesaurus...

"And," the principal continues, rambling as ever, "I hope that you all continue to go on to have good, positive lives and existences. Now," he says, but a lightning crack from backstage stops him cold. "What was that?" he mutters, only loud enough so that the students in the front row can hear him.

None of us answer. We're too surprised by the noise and too confused to wonder about much of anything. Then again, we don't really have the time to wonder as Lylah steps out onto the stage, ammo belts across both shoulders and an AR-15 in her hands.

Um, what?!?

"Ah, hello, everyone," she says, voice icily cool and collected. She has us, knows she's in charge. "I know you're wondering what I'm doing up here. Well, that's simple." With that, she aims the rifle at a boy up the aisle that I barely recognize, and pulls the trigger.

The poor sap has no time to move or do anything to get out of the way as a powder-fine spray of blood and bone and a bit more covers the back of the auditorium. "I'm here to say goodbye."


	3. Chapter Two: Type O-Negative

"Pause there," Miss Tremblay, my police-appointed shrink, tells me. "I think you've had enough of that for today, wouldn't you think?"

I pause, hesitating. "I'm not quite sure," I say, cautiously. "I mean, I want to get this weight off of my chest, and yet," I mutter, feeling the tidal wave of emotions that I've been biting back for weeks threatening to break free. "I just-" I manage to choke out, before my tears fog my glasses and all the rage that I've been fighting comes roaring out.

"And yet," I say, my voice taking on a brittle edge, anger rising higher, "and yet I know exactly what I'd like to do. No, I really don't know if I've had enough. I don't know if I'll ever have enough. I don't think that I can ever really get over what I'm feeling right now. I just-," I say, my walls coming down again.

"I just don't know if I'll ever really be able to get over it, those people were my friends, and now they're gone, and...."

Damn it, I'm rambling, and the worst part is that I know it, and yet I can't do anything about it.

"I'm sorry," I mutter. "I wish I could say more out loud right now, but I can't, I just can't do it, not when the memories are too sharp and the good times we had together too painful to remember.

"No, it's okay," Miss Tremblay tells me, putting a reassuring hand on my trembling arm. "I understand, I promise. If you don't want to talk more about it today, would you be willing to come back to see me in a week, Electra?"

I sigh, pushing myself up off of the ottoman that all of Miss Tremblay's patients sit on when they come in to visit her. "Yes, of course. In the meantime, the breathing exercises like usual, right?"

"You got it," she says, "and yes, before you ask, you can take your notebook home with you. I know you insist on asking permission, but it really is okay, you know?" she says, giving me a smile that is both warming and sad at the same time.

"I know," I say, returning the same look. "It's just-," I sigh, "It's just that there hasn't been any real consistency in my life since, and I ask because it gives me some sense of routine and normalcy, you know?"

"I understand completely, Electra," Miss Tremblay says. "I'll see you tomorrow, usual time."

"Of course," I say, turning to go, shoed foot causing the ancient floorboards of her office to creak. "Same time, same place." With that, I cross the room to the door and leave, pulling it shut behind me until I hear it click.

"Well," I think aloud, "I hope I don't have a nervous breakdown before then."

"Don't worry," says a voice beside me. I jump, startled, and look next to me. It's my mom, and I let out a deep breath, trying to calm my jumpy nerves.

"Sorry, Mom," I mumble, feeling a bit of heat rise in my cheeks.

"Don't be," she says, taking ahold of one of my arms and looking me straight in the face. "Electra, I know that it's hard for you, but it's not your fault, okay? You can't take the blame for Lylah's death. That was her decision, and you had no part in it."

I want to protest, to let her know just how wrong she is, but she doesn't know anywhere near the whole truth, just the little bits and bites that I've decided to spoon-feed her, and even if I really felt like saying anything about it to her (which I don't), I'd have to tell her the real reason why I wear a pink and blue bracelet on my wrist every day. I've managed to get by with the barest of explanations, but I'm going to have to come out about it sooner or later, anyways.

Okay, me, I ask myself, how does tomorrow sound for that?

And despite all the insecurity that I'm feeling right now, I tell myself that Yes, tomorrow's great, and I turn my attention back to the real world, the world that I don't want to face anymore, the world where I'm constantly in fear, always hoping that no one has a gun or some other weapon that they can use to hurt me.

"Electra, did you hear me?" my mom asks. "I didn't hear you say anything."

"Yeah, mom," I mumble, hoping that my refusal to say much of anything will stop her and we can just get going home, where I know I'm safe. "Look, can we please just talk at home, okay?"

She sighs. She's heard this before, heard it for the last two months, every time that she tries to talk to me. Yes, I know that I'm going to have to break my silence, but not here. It's not safe. Someone could shoot us. We're not safe.

"Okay, sweetie," she says, shifting the car into Drive, and we roll out of the lot and begin the hour-long trek home. After about twenty minutes of my staring at nothing and the constant drone of NPR on the radio, my mom breaks her silence and turns to face me for the shortest of seconds, enough to make sure that I've noticed, and then turns back to the road.

"Electra?" my mom asks.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you so quiet these days? I don't get it..."

At that, I snap. "What do you think that you're doing, asking me that question? You know perfectly damn well why I've been so quiet, seeing as I've told you what happened that day time and time and time again, so why the hell do you keep asking me? I've gone through enough, so stop nagging me!"

I'm thankful Mom manages to keep her cool, and she replies, "Look, Electra, I'm sorry I seem like I'm nagging you, but-"

Sensing me about to interrupt, she hold up her hand like Miss Flaunton did, and continues. "As I was saying, Electra, I'm really sorry I seem like I'm nagging you, but you won't talk you me, and I know that it's not healthy to keep things like this all bottled up, not after what I went through all those years ago with your father. Thank goodness that things between us are better now, but I could have sworn before a jury that I thought that that fight would split us apart. It nearly did, and it was because neither of us could figure out to say to the other what we wanted to say. I don't want the same thing to happen to you, Electra, so talk to me."

I sigh, putting my head against the window frame, feeling the vibrations of the tires on the highway beneath us rattle up through the car and into me.

"Look, Mom," I say, still keeping my head against the window and eyes directed towards the drying swaths of corn that line Route 80. "I'm really sorry for being a bitch, and I'm trying, I promise. What do you want me to do? I'm scared of everything, scared scared scared scared scared. Every single damn time I close my eyes, even for a second, I see my ex-girlfriend blasting Lyra Ariander's brains out of the back of his head. What do you want me to do, eh?"

"I want you to- wait, did you say girlfriend?"

"Yeah, do you have a problem with that?"

"Ummm...no," she says. "Why would I?"

"It's just that- oh, I don't know, it's just that I was expecting you to react a bit more, you know. Kinda like in all the TV dramas and the like. A kid comes out to their parents and the parents hit the roof because they can't understand what they've done wrong to make their kid a bender, you know?"

She sighs, a bit of pink coloring her cheeks like it is to mine. "No, Electra, I learned long ago that people are going to be who they are, you know? You have a girlfriend, that's fine. You know," she says, laughing somewhat, "I don't get why you didn't just tell me."

Okay, but what's so funny about that? I don't know, so I think I'll just ask. "Mom," I say, "just why do you find that funny?"

"Oh, Electra," she laughs again, "I've known for years. You don't need to be ashamed of who you are, you just need to be you. That's what matters the most in life, and to hell what anyone else thinks, you know? I love you for you, and whoever calls out to your heart, then by God, then go for it, girl!"

"Thanks, Mom," I say, feeling my cheeks redden even more. "On a completely different topic, talking with Miss Tremblay always seem to drag all the energy out of me. I'm beat, and I'm hungry."

"Should we stop for pizza then? Paladino's is about five minutes from here, we could stop and grab a bite to eat if you like."

I look out the window, and what do you know, we're just outside of Sharon Springs, home off the best pizza in all of Central New York. "Sure. Large cheese and twenty, right?"

"You got it," she says, fumbling around in the enormous handbag that she calls a purse, and pulls out her wallet. "You go ahead on in and order. I need to make a call real quick."

"Okay," I say, taking the wallet from her, and push open the building's steel door. As soon as I'm in, the smells of fresh sauce and grease hit my nose, and I sigh, feeling the stress of the day come pouring out. I've been coming here every week or so, ever since I got my license, and so this place is somewhat my home away from home, one of the only places where I can truly feel safe and sane anymore.

"Hey, Electra," Amy, the cashier and the owner's daughter, greets me. "The usual, right? Large cheese and twenty mild?"

I laugh, one of the few genuine laughs I've had in a long time. "Yeah, that's right. Large cheese and twenty. Am I really that predictable?"

She laughs back. "Aren't we all?"

"We can be. Oh, and three drinks."

"You can go back and grab them."

I do, sliding the cooler open and snagging two cans of Sprite out of the back, where I know they'll be the coldest. As I put the cans on the counter, Mom comes in, and I notice that something doesn't seem quite right about her face, but I don't want to ask her, that's not polite.

A perfectly timed interruption from Amy turns my attention back to the counter. "I take it that's all?"

I nod, and she rings everything up. "That'll be seventeen dollars and sixty cents. Cash or card?"

"This time, Amy, I'm using the card." I pull open my mom's wallet, which holds every single membership card for every store she's ever been to, and fish around until I find her debit card. "Here you go."

She sticks the card in the reader, then pulls it out, along with a receipt, and hands it to me to sign. I use my own- Amy knows us well enough to know that I'm not stealing the card- and then hand both pen and paper back to her. "All right, it'll be about twenty minutes. You guys waiting here?"

"You betcha," I say, and take a seat with Mom. She's glued to her phone, and she looks worried.

"What's wrong?" I ask. "Is everything okay?"

"No, Electra, it's really not all okay. That was my boss." At that, I feel a fist of ice starting to form in my gut. Oh, shit.

"Mm-hmm," I say, hoping that she'll tell me what's going on a little more quickly so that the worry can go away. I've done enough of that recently, and I don't want to let it build up. Thankfully, she does, but what she says does the exact opposite of relieve the stress. "That was my boss," she repeats, more slowly this time, and he was not happy with me."

"Why not?" I ask. I can't remember her telling me that something was wrong at work.

"Well," she says, "he's rather pissed off at me because I've been taking so much time off recently."

"Yeah? So?" I snap. "What's his problem?"

"Everything's the problem with him, Electra. No matter what I do, even if it's exactly what he asks me to do, exactly, well, it's still not good enough. That, and I've taken the last several weeks off to get everything organized."

"And just why is that a problem? Your daughter, me, was shot within an inch of her life on the very day that she gets back from a hospital visit where she was sick with the flu within an inch of her life, and he dickwad's pissed off because you're not there to answer his every beck and call?"

"Yeah, pretty much," she sighs. "Which is why I gave him my two weeks this morning. That's what that call was, me telling him that I wasn't going to put up with his little obsessions and insistences that it had to be perfect the first time. I'm done."

"Well," I say, slightly breathless, "that's big news. Great news, but big news nonetheless."

"I know, isn't it? A decade and a half, dealing with that bastard, and not one raise in pay, not one single fricking thank you, just 'Annelies, do this, Annelies, do that,' and I'm done. That's not why I went to college to be a nurse. Now," she continues, a smile lighting up the corners of her mouth, "I know for a fact that your school is looking for a new nurse. Seems the old one quit. I bet all the blood got to be too much for her, huh?"

"Hmm," I say. "Seems like it did. Let me guess- you're thinking about applying?"

"Well, that's just the thing- I already did- I called the school board right after, and they say that they'd like an interview as soon as I'm out of work tomorrow."

"Mom, that's great news, really it is!"

"I'm glad you think so," she says, "but it also means that you're going back to school as soon as my two weeks are up."

"What?!?" I ask. "I don't think I heard you right, did you say that I have to go back there after all of this shit?"

"Yes, I did," she says, and then, noticing that Amy's heading our direction with our order, says "Don't worry about that now. Seeing as out food's here, why don't we talk about something more pleasant?"

"Seems like a good idea to me," I say as Amy sets the pizza on the stand that's built into the tabletop. "Why don't we enjoy this food while it's hot and talk about something more pleasant, hmm?"

"That's fair," Mom says. "What do you think about next year's elections?"

"You mean who I think should win? Well, that's an interesting segue, but I'll bite," I say, snagging a piece of pizza off of the tray and taking a more literal bite out of that. "Well," I say after I'm done chewing and swallowing, "I think that Palmieri's done a damn awful job, especially in regards to gun control. I mean, come on, this is the twenty-first century, and yet people still die at the hands of other idiots. Look," I say, "I'm not trying to politicize things here, but after you survive a shooting at the hands of your ex-girlfriend, who, also, by the way, killed sixty-seven of your schoolmates and then herself, well, that kinda changes one's stance on the matter, wouldn't you say?"

"I certainly would," she replies, taking a bit of her own pizza. "I absolutely would say that, but what are you going to do about it? I mean, we've already had two national walkouts to protest, but it's been to no avail. Albany keeps ignoring us, I mean, come on, we're the state that has the most lax gun laws in the nation, and also the deadliest cities. What are we going to do?"

"I know," Amy interjects.

"What?" I ask, having somehow completely forgotten that she was here with us. "You can ask for forgiveness, and you can write to the Governor, but that never works, right?"

"Exactly," I say.

"Well, then, Amy says, "you can learn more about her, forgive her that way." She sighs, saying, "Look, Electra, I know that you want revenge, but she's dead now. I saw what happened, I was there that day."

"You go to Charlotte Valley?" I ask, surprised. "Then how come I've never seen you in school before?"

"Recent transfer. I moved from Edmeston just about a month and a half ago. That day just so happened to be my first at Charlotte Valley."

"Damn, girl," I whistle, pizza neglected. "That must have been awful."

"No shit," she says back. "You want to talk about it with someone who was actually there that day? Deal."

"Yeah," I say, "I really would. "What time's good for you?"

"How about tomorrow at noon at the library over in Sherburne?"

"Sounds fine to me," she replies.

I turn to Mom, hoping she'll catch my drift. Thankfully, she does. "If you want to go, Electra, I'll drive you over."

"Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you, Amy."

"Not a problem. See you then, Electra," she says turning away from our table and back to the counter, where a gaggle of kids- freshmen, judging by the sheen of all of their backpacks. Eh, whatever, I think, turning back to my lunch and snagging myself a wing. The spicy taste of its sauce hits my tongue, and I sigh, feeling the day's stress catch up with me. Ah, the joys of comfort food, right? Everytime I can grab myself a slice, I feel better. Maybe it's just the fat and salt talking, but the fullness in my stomach helps my mind unwind itself.

Now, that wasn't always the case, but ever since a couple of weeks ago....

Twenty minutes later, we're done with the wings and the pizza, and the Sprite that I grabbed earlier is just dregs in the bottom of the can. "Well, that was as delicious as always. Electra, could you help me clean up here?" Mom asks me.

"Sure," I say, moving to grab the cans and sauce and grease-laden plates. I stuff the cans in the recycling and the plates in the garbage.

"Thanks as always, Amy. Both for the wonderful meal this time, and for the company for the both of us," Mom says, putting both the tray and stand on the counter.

"You're welcome," she says, leaving us be as we head out the door and into the sudden thunderstorm that's decided to come crashing down on over the course of the forty-odd minutes that we've spent inside.

"Electra, did you have any idea about this storm?" she asks as the wind whips gusts of rain into our respective faces.

Diving back into the car, rain dripping off my hair and onto my sodden lap, I slam the door behind me. "Damn," I grumble. "Where the hell did this come from? I've had a rough enough day as it is, I don't need this shit now too."

"It's okay, Electra," Mom says placatingly, putting a rough and calloused hand on my knee right beneath the hem of my miniskirt.

I sigh. "I know, Mom, and I know that it'll all be okay in the end, I really do, I promise, but you know, when you're cold and you're wet and you're not catching the flu, well then, you tend to be a bit on edge, you know?"

"I do know, Electra," she says, sighing for what seems like the millionth time this afternoon. "I really do know, Electra," she says again, looking up at the torrential rain gushing down the windshield and all of the other windows. "Come on, let's get ourselves home, yeah? That sound good?"

"Yeah, that sounds great, Mom," I say back, and she turns the key in the ignition, and off we roll.

Half an hour later, we're pulling into the driveway at home alongside Dad's even older Honda van, and the rain still hasn't let up. If anything, it's gotten stronger, and so Mom tells me. "Electra, honey?"

"Yeah?" I ask.

"This rain's just getting worse, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I say, "it is. Let's just make a run for it. That sound good?"

"You bet it does," she says. "On the count of three. One. Two. Three. Go!"

On three, we unbuckle ourselves as quickly as is humanly possible, swing the car's doors open, and jump clear, dashing for the house like mad people (which we well and truly are) and slam the car's doors behind us, the bang of their closure barely audible over the gushing torrents of rain.

I dash for the porch, where the front door is- safety, dryness, home- and yank the glass open, pouring in onto the mat, dripping wet and freezing.

"Damn, where did this come from?" I grumble. "I thought it wasn't supposed to start raining until later, that's why I wanted the appointment when it was..."

"So what? It's raining. That happens all the time in Central New York, what are you going to do about it?"

I sigh- again- and say, "Nothing, Mom, absolutely nothing. It's just another part of my life that I have absolutely no fucking control over, you know?"

"Yes, I do know. Why don't you go get changed, and I'll put a pot of water on to boil so we can have some hot cocoa. How does that sound?"

"It sounds wonderful, Mom," I say, taking my jacket off and tossing it over the banister, genuinely happy for a small moment. Then the cold and wet seep through to my senses again, and I shiver.

 

Damn, I'm freezing, I think, and hop up the stairs to my room two at a time so that I can solve that problem. Once inside, I peel off my soaked clothes, and drop them into the hamper by my bed. Based on my reflection in the full-length mirror by my dresser, I don't look too hot. My amber hair is soaked and pressed into a sodden mat down my back, and my mascara's running black tear tracks on either side of both eyes. That's all fixable, though.

My defining featured nowadays are the two wrinkled round scars on my front, one right above my belly button and the other just shy of my heart. Lucky for me, they went right through and missed anything vital. I think that I'll forever be thanking whoever might be up above that I've still alive.

Whatever the case may be, though, I don't have time to worry about that. I slip into the bathroom that's right across the hall, slipping the door shut behind me and twisting the lock shut. Here, I can get a better look at myself, and I really don't like what I see. Ducking down to the floor, I open the cupboard and snag two full-size towels. I dry my hair off and shuck the towel into the hamper that resides right by the toilet, and wrap the other one around my top so that it looks somewhat like a toga.

Geex, I look ridiculous, but who cares? I really don't give a shit, but that's what being shot will do to you, eh? Laughing at how silly I sound, even to myself, I unlock the door and slip silently back into my own bedroom, and shut and lock the door. I sit down on my bed, wiped, and wish I could just slip beneath the covers for a nap, but it'll never happen, not with all the pizza still churning in my stomach and the jittery nerves I feel even though I know in the back of my mind that I'm safe. It's then that I realize that I haven't brought my journal upstairs with me, and I really don't want to try to go downstairs in just this skimpy towel. The last time I did that, well, it wasn't good.

What does that mean, one might ask? Well, that's easy. The last time I tried to go downstairs without getting out of a towel and dressed first, I stepped on the edge of the towel as I went down the stairs and slipped, landing three seconds later on the hard oak floor below in a naked, wet mess, bruised like all get out. I haven't done that since.

Anyways, I don't have my journal, so I call out. "Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah?" comes her shouted response from somewhere downstairs- probably in the living room, trying to get a fire started, 'cause I smell a little bit of wood smoke wafting up.

"Would you grab my journal out of my bag?"

"Did you bring it in?"

"Oh, crap. No, I didn't."

"Well, it's still raining outside..."

"How bad is it?" I ask.

"Well, it's certainly a hell of a lot better than it was earlier, it's just drizzling a little bit now. I'll get it in a sec, just let me get this fire started, all right?"

"Yeah, not a problem," I call back down. "Let me get dressed, and I'll be down shortly to help."

I do as I'm told, yanking open the dresser drawers and pulling out the first shirt, bra, underwear and pants that I can find. I put everything on, making sure to grab my eyeglass cloth, polish my glasses, stuff the cloth into the bottom of my pocket, and open up the door.

Leaving the door open behind me, I curse the spare drops of water that were on my on my skin and are now making my clothes slightly damp. Deciding to ignore that slight annoyance for the time being, I traipse on down the stairs, where the smell of wood smoke again assaults my nose. It looks like Mom's trying to start a fire in the fireplace, and, like usually happens when she tries such things, she's failing miserably. Smoke's billowing up all over the place, and I suppose that the stupid smoke detector's batteries are dead if it's not screetching like a pissed-off cat at us with all that's going on down here. It's a small blessing considering the mess that we now have to deal with.

I dash over to her, grabbing the towels off the handle that's on the front of the oven as I go. I hold one over to my mouth and offer one to her and take a seat on my knees over by the fireplace, coughing like crazy. "Damn, Mom," I whistle to the best of my ability behind the towel. "What happened?"

"Oh, you know," Mom says, wheezing, "just what usually happens if I try to start a fire and forget that I can't put pine branches on the stupid thing/"

"Well, then," I say, "seeing as the stupid thing hasn't really started yet, why don't you just close the vents and let it burn out? No oxygen, no flame, no flame, no fire."

"Yeah, good point there, Electra, she says, still coughing slightly. She closes the vents, and voila, the fire dies down to slightly orange embers. "Cough- Do you have any homework to get done this evening?"

"No, I don't, thank God," I say. "I think the teachers are too shell-shocked to give us any, as if they're afraid of setting us off or something. Me they're not going to be able to do that do, but as for anyone else? I don't know about that."

"Well, no matter what the reason, just be thankful that there isn't any," Mom says, gulping down a glass of water to soothe her presumably smoke-burnt throat. "Here, let's open the windows," she says, motioning me over to where she's standing by the bank of windows that make up most of the living room's back wall. I crank the rest of them open and revel in the cool breeze that carries the smoke away and out of the house.

"Thanks, Electra," she sputters.

"Whoa, Mom, you okay there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, perfectly fine," she coughs. "Just swallowed some of this water too fast and it went down the wrong pipe, you know?"

"Yeah," I do," I say. "Do you mind if I snag my journal out of the car now that it's stopped raining?"

"Seems fine to me. Hey," she interjects, "after you're done journalling, want to watch a movie with me?"

"Yeah, what do you want to watch?"

"Honestly," she says, then seems to change her mind. "Nah, I'll just tell you later, after you're done writing, that sound good?"

"Mm-hmm," I say, turning away from her and the fireplace, where smoke hovers ashen gray behind the glass. I walk out to the car, not bothering to snag a jacket and caring even less about my feet. I'm not dead yet, and I don't really care about wet feet. I pop the passenger-side back door and snag my backpack from where it fell after I got out.

Yanking it up and out of the back, I take it with me and close the door behind me, dashing back into the house before the rain can start back up and ambush me. After that, I dash upstairs and close that door behind me, too. A girl's got to have her privacy, you know?

I plop down on my bed any pull the mound of blankets up over my legs to keep me warm and flip open my journal (again, not a diary) and begin a new entry.

Dear Journal, I write,

I'm feeling beat right about now. Thank goodness that I'm all caught up on my homework, because I have to go back to school next Monday. Yes, some sense of normalcy and routine in my life will be much appreciated, even though I really- and I mean really hate school. But then again, who doesn't?

Anyways, even though you're an inanimate unfeeling pad of paper, you've shown me more compassion than most of my fellow students and teachers, even though they had to live through the same hellish shitstorm that I did. You know, maybe that's why they're that way. I hadn't thought of that aspect before, but in retrospect, I really should have, they lived through that day, suffered through it, really, just as much as I did, if not even more than I did.

Yeah, that day was just fucking awful. See, unlike the stereotypical school shooter, Lylah lets us run, but not before firing a few more shots into the crowd to silence us. Well, that much worked, we shut up, but there were a few brave- or idiotic, rather- fellow students who dared to try their plans of escape before Lylah was done speaking. What happened to them, you ask?

Well, to put things simply enough, the local memorial service has done a swift business in headstones recently...

I'm just thankful I'm alive, you know?

Anyways. After Lylah started shooting up the place, I ducked under the back of the risers. Thank God that she was too distracted to notice that I had made a run for it, and hiding under the risers like a complete coward, I could hear the soft pops of the bullets as they fired and the crack-bang of a person becoming a corpse.

I made it out some twenty minutes later, I wonder if Lylah just forgot about me, or what. I don't know, I don't care. I snuck out the door, praying that it would bang louder than the sounds of the gunshots, and ran to the office, where I found the principal and superintendent cowering by the back window.

"Look," I'd whispered, trying to ignore the strange smell that had suddenly hit my nose, "you need to call 911."

When they didn't make a move, let alone a sound, I tried again. They still didn't move, and then I noticed the bloody pistol in Ms. McGinnis's hand and the blood pooled around both of them.

Somehow that didn't surprise me, but what it did was further steel my resolve to beat the shit out of Lylah, if she hadn't already beaten the brains out of herself with a lead slug or two from the AK that she was toting. Well, that, and ensuring that she couldn't do anyone else the same way by calling the cops. Thankfully enough, the call went out. Lylah was dead, though that was an unfortunate given, and well, there was plenty of blood spilled in the halls and on the floors, its coppery odor permeating every single damn nook and cranny of the building. The Red Cross showed up not half and hour later and immediately began work on setting up an aid station in the parking lot, and as soon as I could manage to set aside my fear for the slightest of seconds and give blood. Well, give blood by spilling it all over the place, Lylah had put three holes in me.

They patched me up, which as great, but well, they couldn't patch her up, not with half of the back of her head having been blown clean off and blasted into a fine pink mist all over the auditorium ceiling.

More gravestones for the stonecutters, more six-by-four trenches for the gravediggers.

Screw this shit,

I've had enough. Back to the real world, eh?

I need a break, I'm beat.

Yours,

Electra Juliana Stehlen-Wilde

With that, I slap my journal closed and take a look around the room, and notice shadows creeping up the walls. Geez, how long did writing that short little journal entry take? It feels like I was only sitting on my bed writing for twenty or thirty minutes, roundabouts, but based on the late afternoon/ early evening glow of a rosy sunset coming in through the windows and the sharp cramp in both my legs that's just now working its way through my worn system and into my beleaguered brain, I've been here at least an hour and a half, so Mom's probably been wondering where the heck I've been, because I usually don't take so long to write these journals, maybe half an hour, but an hour at tops, not even. Usually it's more like forty, fifty minutes tops.

Well, I'd better get my rear in gear and get it downstairs before I starve, yeah?

Sounds good to me, and so I do. As I grow closer to the bottom of the staircase, Mom, who seems to still be coughing slightly from the earlier smoky debacle, is stirring an enormous saucepot of what smells like an Italian-style marinara, my favorite.

I pull out a chair and let my head drop to the table, exhausted.

As I was saying earlier, though, I love pasta and marinara sauce, and I'll be in absolute heaven if Mom's made her special meatballs and garlic bread as a side. My day is complete if that happens, so that means that at the end of yet another hectic, yet contradictorally peaceful day, I can drop my guard.

Now, that doesn't happen often, but that's really nothing new. I've never been a social butterful by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that I'm hard on the outside, like an overcooked meatball, and then if you bite into me, I'm soft and dry, and -this is the most important part- vulnerable.

As the old adage goes, I'm a lover, not a fighter. Never have been, never, ever will be. Now, that's not to say that I won't stand up for what I believe in or for myself, I can battle with words with the best of them, I'm sure of that, but if it comes down to choosing to fight with fists, brawns over brain, or looking like a cowardly, nerdy wimp (the glasses don't do much in those regards), I'll gladly turn tail and run.

"What were you writing about up there?" Mom asks. "It must 've been been awfully important to take sol long."

"Yes and no," I reply. " It was rather important, as are most of my entries into that little gray notebook, but as for why I was upstairs for way, way, way too long? I lost track of time, that's all. Nothing really important. I was just being my usual distractible Electra self, you know?"

"I do," Mom says, hmming slightly. "Are you looking forward to going back to school?"

"Well, somewhat," I say. "A going back to semblance of normalcy will sure be nice, but other than that? No, not really, I don't quite understand the point of this whole thing."

"Electra," Mom groans, "not this conversation again..."

"I get it, Mom," I sigh. "I wasn't planning on it, mom, I was just frustrated and grumbling. I'm not going to cause a fuss."

"I'm glad to hear it, dear. Now sit down and eat."

I do as I'm told, and when we're done, I'm full again, and my slightly wonky mind has let me go for a while, and the tomato sauce that's giving me a bit of a mustache is starting to itch. I grab my napkin and wipe it off, leaving a red smear behind. I look at the napkin to see how much of the sauce came off. It didn't feel like there was much on my face, so judging from the mark on the napkin, I think all the sauce is gone. I look up from that to see Mom fixing me with a curious look on her face.

"What is it, Mom?" I ask, slightly confused.

"I have a question for you, Electra, and I want you to be perfectly honest."

Uh-oh.

"When did you start liking girls?"

Well, I think. This just got interesting.


	4. Chapter 3: Phoenix Ascending

Four Years Earlier

"Hey, mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I go out tonight? I want to catch a movie with some friends. How's that sound? You'd bet me out of the house for a while, get to have the place clean and quiet and to yourself. How does that sound?"

"You know what?" she'd replied. "That sounds great." Little did I know what that movie day would end up becoming the root of this whole damn mess, but hey, hindsight just so happens to be a perfect twenty-twenty, right?

Well, it was great, and quite honestly, it was one of the best times that I've ever had. Of course, it would indirectly lead to the worst, but what did I just write?

Exactly. So there I was, a rather young, and shall I say it, inexperienced eighth grader, and as far as I had known, I was just going to the movies- Phoenix Ascending, it was called, if I remember correctly.

Well, I went with Lylah and another friend, and while we were sitting there, I felt a soft hand touch my own right. I looked over, and I saw Lylah sitting there with an embarassed look on her face, as if she had done something wrong. "What is it?" I'd asked. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, just fine," she'd said, turning back to the screen and pulling her arm back into her lap. Everything was just fine for another twenty minutes or so, but then I felt that same hand again, but this time, when I looked, she didn't pull her hand away like the last time. Instead, she took my hand fully and wrapped her fingers between mine.

"Uhm, Lylah," just one question," I'd asked.

"What question is that, Electra?"

"Why are you hugging my hand?"

Instead of responding, she pressed her lips against mine, and as much as I was shocked, I didn't move. Instead, I kissed her back, and the warmth flooding up in my chest and in some other places told me that Welp, Electra, you've kissed a boy, and you liked that. Now you're kissing a girl, and you apparently like that, too. Hey, I'm all for that!

\--

Present Day

"So that was it, then? The point when you well and truly found out how you roll?"

"If by that, you mean I discovered that I was bi, well, yes and no. I'd kind of been wondering about that silently for I while, and I think that I probably would have been the first one to make a move. It's just that Lylah's making the move first made who I was- who I am, at least in that regard, crystal clear.

"Of course, the relationship didn't last forever, as most high school relationships tend to. I don't suppose that feeling like we had to hide it really helped much of anything, either, do you?" I asked, inquisitively.

"No, Electra, I really don't," Mom said. " Is that why you haven't had any friends over in so long? You were ashamed of me?"

"What's that supposed to mean, Mom? No, of course I wasn't ashamed of you, not in the slightest. I was ashamed that I couldn't bring myself to tell you about us, and that's really what broke us apart as a couple in the end. We were still friends, after all, but her mom and dad were constantly pushing at her to go find someone to date. 'Get yourself a nice boy,' they had told her, or so she told me that they told her. She didn't want to come out to her parents because she was afraid of what they were going to treat her as, and I didn't want to push the matter. That, and as I said, I didn't want to tell you, so there we go.

"That was certainly the end of us, but it wasn't the end of our friendship. No, that came about eight or nine weeks ago, I can't remember how long it was, exactly, but that's really not important right now. Anyways, what really drove us apart was my starting to date Michael. I did tell you that much, didn't I?"

"Yes, you have, Electra," Mom said, a frown wrinkling her forehead. Is there something else that you'd like to tell me?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing. I was just asking. Being annoying is in the job description, you know."

"I think I'd kinda figured that out," I said. "By the way, what's for dessert?"


	5. Chapter 4: Matchstrike

March Eighth, 2018

I hate her. I hate Electra, hate her for making me think she loved her and then smashing my heart against the rocks. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I've been looking at myself in the mirror a lot recently and wondering how I would look with half of my face missing. I inevitably decide that that's a stupid idea, and rather pointless. My mom doesn't need to deal with that mess, and really, it's overreacting to go that far, but you want to know what, in my mind, would be perfect?

Her brains instead of mine, yeah, that sounds great.

Okay, then, we're going to have our final assembly of the year and it just so happens that it'll be my last assembly at Charlotte Valley Central for the rest of my life. I'm a senior this year, just like Electra is, the Class of 2018. I'm thankful to be leaving, even if it's in handcuffs, escorted by a full squad of fully-armed officers.

Still think I'm overreacting? Fine, but remember, no one but me gets a say in the matter, I'm the one with the gun. Or, well, at least I will be. That's going to be the hard part, New York may have incredibly lax gun laws, but I'm still going to have to present an ID. There's that safeguard, at least. Well, I certainly know how to get around that one, 'cause I've been sneaking around the edges of the law for as long as I can remember. Having a drunkard for a mother and a father who pretends that I'm not around (I suspect that he's found someone else to bone, 'cause my mother's too out of it of it most of the fucking time to indulge him in that way.

Well, whatever the case may be, I've got problems, that much is obvious. Electra Stehlen-Wilde, well, she's one of them nowadays.

Maybe, if anyone ever gets their filthy mitts on them after I've gotten away, fled to Canada, maybe, they'll look at it and wonder how my mind managed to get so darned twisted. That, well, I don't have an answer to that particular question. I think I'll manage to figure it out once the red paints the walls, yeah?

I may be crazy, but we all know who to blame for that one. Time to set their world ablaze with sulphur and smoke, right?

Well, of course, that's obvious. The answer is an overly enthusiastic hell yes!

Yours, Lylah Loxley

PS- If the police ever uncover this, ask them to say goodbye to Electra from me, would you?

Thanks.


	6. Chapter 5: New Notes and Old News

March 15, 2018

I don't know how long I've been hiding down in here, hoping that I don't spatter my shoes with Ms. McGinnis's blood, and I also can't help wondering how they got here, because the last that I saw of them (alive, that is) was in the auditorium not half and hour ago. It feels like it's been so much longer than that, though, but time flies when you're afraid, don't you know?

As I cower back here, behind the front panel of whoever's desk this is (I can't remember who exactly it belonged to, I haven't been in trouble in so long...In fact, if I remember correctly, which I tend to, Mrs. McGinnis had told me that if I were to ever get in trouble, she would resign as principal then and there. I don't know if she was serious or if she was joking, but I get the feeling that she was serious. I also have a feeling that no one will ever know now, because she's dead, and I don't know who did her in. I get that sinking feeling right in the pit of my stomach that it was by her own doing, though I don't know where she would have managed to get the gun from. As lax as New York State's gun laws may be, the government tries to balance that out by requiring each and every school in the state to install metal detectors by the doors, and Charlotte Valley doesn't let anyone into the building after hours for any reason, so someone would have had to have smuggled the damn thing in. I can't think of how they would do that, though, not for the life of me (which, by the way, there probably isn't much left).

None of this makes any God damn sense. I just don't get any fucking bit of it of it, and I hope that I manage to live through-

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Were those more gunshots that I just heard? And where the fucking hell are the police?

It's then that I hear footsteps outside the door, and seconds later, it starts to creak open on hinges that sound like they haven't been oiled in decades, if not centuries. I cringe, waiting for the mystery person to come nearer. No, scratch that, I know exactly who it is on the other side of that door, and if I'm done for, well, there's still the pistol that's lying blood-besotten on the the floor. It's a six- or eight-round magazine, and I hope that there's a spare shell or three left, 'cause I'm going to need them soon.

Well, then again, who knows? All I know right now is that I'm royally screwed. Thank God, the door creaks shut and Lylah's footsteps continue down the hall, and I'll bet my life that she's going for the others.

Well, not if I can stop it.

\--

Present Day

"Electra! Hey! Electra!"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, Mom, I think I kinda zoned out there, I managed to find myself at school again, and you can guess the rest, yeah?"

"Unfortunately, Electra, yes, I can. Why don't you head to bed now, dear? It's gotten late, and seeing as you just zoned out for a little while, I think it's safe to say that you've had a long day, eh?"

"You know it," I said, yawning and trying, yet failing to contain it. "Sorry, Mom," I say. "I'll head up to bed now. See you in the morning. Now I'd better get upstairs before I fall asleep."

"Okay, Electra," Mom says, yawning again. "Good night, dear."

I head upstairs and as soon as I get to my room, I leap onto my bed, toss my glasses onto the night stand, pull the covers up over me, and I'm out cold.

Unfortunately, though, I have a dream for the first time since that day, and it's not one that I much care for. I'd had it before, even before all the shit at the school went down. I wonder if it could have been considered a premonition, but I don't really care right now. I'm too busy sprinting down the halls of Charlotte Valley Central with a homicidal maniac that wears my face and totes an AK shooting at me wherever I go, the bullets sending up  _piff_ s of tile dust behind me and cutting my bare back. For whatever reason, I'm wearing a nightgown that's soaked red and has "killer" scrawled all over it.

I fight the dream, and every single time, I find that I can only break loose from the dream in the the way I almost did in real life- Lylah putting a bullet through my head. I swear that I had no idea what was going on in hers, but if I had known...

While I'm thinking this, the dream me finally loses her stamina and trips and falls face-down on the cold tile like she always does, and dream Lylah puts a foot on her back, just like she really did to me, and lowers her gun to the back of my head, and like she did to herself just over three weeks ago. No, scratch that, this is April Fifth, so it was exactly three weeks ago. See, this is what happens when you're frazzled.

Well, that, and you've managed to trip in your dream for what you hope is the last time, and down you go. I hear the crack in the back of my ears, and -

"Gah! Whoo, whee-whoo, whee-," I wheeze. "Damn it," I grumble, my voice barely higher than a whisper, because according to my new LED digital clock on the nightstand not ten feet away, it's fifteen minutes after eleven. Damn, I couldn't have had this nightmare later in the night, when I would've been getting back up to get ready for the day anyways? I mean, come on, I go back to school in a few days, anyway, and I really need to get back into the swing of things. Besides, Amy's going to be expecting me over at her house tomorrow, and I'd really like to be well-rested so that I can have my head screwed on straight, yeah?

I toss and turn for a few more minutes, eventually resorting to laying on my back and counting sheep, like I used to do when I was smaller and a lot more wound up. I'm at six hundred and seventy-eight when I finally manage to go under, and this time, the dream that my brain's theater has decided to screen for the second showing of the night is a bit more peaceful. I'm just lounging away at a lake- I have no idea where, I don't recognize it- and sipping lemonade- letting my guard down, but then of course, it has to go wrong. I get up to walk down to the beach, maybe go for a swim, when I trip over the cooler that I apparently brought with me.

Groaning, I get back up, only to find that the beach and beautiful valley have morphed into a courtroom, and when I twist my neck to look around my, I notice that I'm shackled, both hands and feet chained together, and I'm wearing a prisoner's orange jumpsuit, stamped with the words 'Ossining Federal Penitentiary.'

It's then that I hear a bang from the front of the courtroom, where Ms. McKenna stands, holding the judge's gavel. "Electra Stehlen-Wilde," she pronounces, "the jury has reached its verdict. For the callous murders of your classmates, your schoolmates, and me," she says, and as she does, blood starts oozing from her head and chest, "we, the jury, sentence you to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole."

Then the gavel comes down again, its bang even more pronounced this time. "Dismissed," she says, and with a gavel that has now become a revolver, fires a shot into my chest.

I wake up gasping for breath for the second time that night, and I can feel the burns of where my principal shot me. I know it's not real, know it know it know it, and yet my mind won't let go, won't calm down and realize that I'm olay. I'm not going to die. I know that in my rational mind, I know I'm safe, know I'm not going to die, I know a lot of things, but my rational mind isn't what's in charge right now.

I take several more deep breaths, willing myself not to panic, and this time I manage to get ahold of myself, and I fight myself awake. This time, it's well after midnight, as evidenced by the rosy pink and orange sunlight that's making its comforting way into my bedroom. I sigh, exhausted by the nasty shit that my mind's been putting me through recently.

"Hey, you alright in there?" comes Mom's voice, followed by a series of short knocks on the door.  _Rap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Rap-tap-tap-tap-tap._

"Yeah, Mom," I say, hoping that she won't catch on to the deception in my voice. I feel awful lying to her, but I don't want to scare her any more than I have to, she's already put enough on the line for me, I mean, she got herself fired for it, that's  _got_  to count for something, right? Oh, fine.

I sigh, knowing that I won't like what I'm going t say next, but it's better than lying, right? Oh, I don't know...

"Well," I continue, "fine is really rather relative, but yeah, I'm all okay."

"You had a nightmare again, didn't you? I knew something was going on in the middle of the night, but I didn't want to interrupt. Oh-" she pauses, "let me guess. You didn't want to worry your poor old mother, so you try to fake her out with a smile and a lie and an affirmation that you're all okay, is that right?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," I say, embarrassed.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Mom says. "Why don't you let me in, Electra, and we can talk about it. How does that sound?"

I sigh again, deeper and sadder this time. "Yeah," I say, "Come on in, Mom, the door's open like always."

She does as I ask, stepping in gently and closing the door softly behind her. It's a testament to her skill as a parent that she's able to do that as silently as she does, even though my door's hinges tend to have a temper tantrum whenever they're feeling abused. She takes a seat on the bed next to me, right hand steadying herself, the other finding its way into my lap. I take it, looking up into a set of amber eyes, so much like my own, and find them brimming with tears. "What's wrong, Mom?" I ask, wondering why I seem to have broken her so badly. When she doesn't answer, I ask again. "Mom, come on, you can't just leave me hanging like this. Come on, really, just tell me. Please?" I beg, feeling my own eyes begin to water. Instead of answering, she asks me a question, a question that stops me cold.

"Do you love me, Electra? More than that, do you trust me? In your heart of hearts, do you really truly trust me?"

_What the hell is that supposed to mean? She knows that answer. I 've told it to her time and time again, every single damn day, and she asks me_ _that_ _?_ I ask her that same thing, but I keep my tone flat and level, and I reign in my words a little so that I don't make this damn mess any worse than it already is.

"What I mean, Electra, is what I just asked you. Do. You. Love. Me?" she says slowly, punctuating each word and making them their own little fragmented sentence, as I can tell that our hearts are right now, broken into tiny little sharp pieces and chips.

"Yes, Mom," I do," I say, worry tingeing the edge of my voice like a bloodstain.

"Well, then, Electra," she asks, "why did you lie to me?"

_Shit, I'm trapped, just like I knew that in the end I would be._

"Plus," she continues, "you have a package that came in the mail for you, and it's addressed from Lylah. I thought that we should turn it in, seeing as it's probably going to have some evidence in it, but I also through that you should be able to read it through before we do."

"Okay, so then hand it over, why don't you?" When she doesn't move, just holds on to the thick envelope, I ask again, more politely this time. "Mom, may I  _please_ have the package that Lylah sent me? I know what she did, but maybe what she wrote will give us a little bit of insight about her choice? I can't imagine her just going off her rocker like that," I say, snapping my fingers to emphasize my point, "no, I really can't do that. She was probably the single sanest person I knew, so there has to be a reason, and knowing Lylah, if there's a reason for something, we're going to find it in whatever she sent us."

"Fine, Electra," Mom says, sighing as she hands me one thick brown package. The first thing that I notice about it is that it's not from Lylah's address. No, I know her home address like the back of my hand, and this one isn't it. I have no fricking clue where it is, and I don't really have the time to search it up on Google Maps or something like that, Amy's going to be expecting me to come over later. I rip open the envelope, and the leather-covered journal inside that comes sliding out is exactly what I was expecting to be inside- Lylah's diary, which, unlike mine, she made rather clear to all who asked (meaning everyone, as she toted the darn thing around with her wherever she went) that it  _was_ , in fact a diary, which meant that no one, besides hers truly, had permission to read it. Why, then, it went all over with her, I don't know.

I open it up, and as I do, a thin sheet that looks like it came off of a stenography pad, creased and wrinkled, falls out. I snatch it as it flutters gently down to the ground, reaching for it and snagging it gently between my fingers.

"What's that?" Mom asks, her curiosity seemingly piqued.

"I have no idea," I reply, unfolding the paper gently between my fingers. It looks like it's a note from Lylah to me," I say, "based on the cursive 'Electra' on the front."

"Well, go on, open it up, read it," Mom urges. I wonder why she's so impatient all of a sudden. Deciding to ignore the slight twinge of frustration that wells up inside me at her words, I choke that down and put on a straight face.  _Why do I have a feeling in the pit of gut that this isn't going to be good?_

I open up the note, and inside, I find a simple line, scrawled in the sloppy red cursive of a girl who's hurrying to get things done.

_Dear my dear Electra_ , the note reads,  _I've been wondering what you've think of me when I shot up the building. Of course, when I am now, well, it hasn't happened yet, but seeing as I'm scrawling this as hastily as I can on the morning of March Fifteenth, I'm sure you'll all see soon. I'm going to send this little present along for you sixth class snail mail, I hope they'll have stopped the investigation into my suicide-murder light show by then, but if not, well, I seem to recall that you and your family have a fireplace in your living room. Burn this book and oh, the most important instruction of all, since I don't think- no, scratch that, I know I won't be alive to see it- go fuck yourself._

_Yeah, you heard that right, 'dear heart.' After all the good times that we had together (and you know very god-damn fucking well what I mean by that)- you went and dumped me for him?_

_Really?_

_Then I have just three last words for you here, and the rest, well, you'll just have to read on and find out._

_But where was I? Oh yeah, back to the point-_

_Fuck you, bitch!_

"Geeez," I whistle, "she must have been pretty steamed at me to write  _this_. As for it being evidence, Mom, you're absolutely right. Looks like she was planning this, and from what she said, it looks like it was a long time coming, too."

"Let me see that," Mom says, and hearing the anger in her voice, I oblige. I hand the note over and watch as, while her eyes skim the note, her eyes grow narrower and narrower until they're nothing more than slits. When she's finally done reading (which takes a while, because it looks like she keeps jumping back up several paragraphs, and when she finally manages to get through the whole thing, she turns to me, hands shaking.

"Well, Electra," she says, voice dangerously low, "I have quite a number of questions for you after reading that, but you know what? I'll wait. You go on ahead and read that diary of hers, and then, well, we'll see, 'dear heart,' we'll see."

At that, I snap. Who does she think she is, calling me that? That name was between Lylah and me, no one else, and I make sure she knows that. As much as I want to scream at her, I bite my temper back and stuff my temper down my throat and hope that it won't gag me as I try to speak.

"Mom," I say, my voice low and as calm as I can manage it, "I don't think you quite understand the entirety of this situation."

"No, Electra, you're right," she says, in a tone that that's slightly calmer than earlier and yet screams repressed rage. "I  _don't_  quite understand the situation that's going on- been going on, whatever. You're going to have to explain that to me, but for right now," she says, waving a hand in my direction, "go on, go read it. I'll wait here."

"Oh-kaaay...." I say, feeling like this is a trap, but I don't know what I should say here. Instead. Feeling like a complete idiot, I leave and head back up to my room, making absolutely sure that I've locked it behind me.

Once I'm sure of that, I drop wearily to my bed. Those nightmares last night, then what's going on now? Well, I can at least hope that I'll be able to make it to Amy's on time.

I flip Lylah's diary open, noticing disgustedly that some pages are splattered with what looks like dried flecks of blood.  _Oh, gross_ , I think, but tell my stomach to shut it for a while, then turn to the first page.  _Weird_ , I think, this page is blank. I flip to the next page. Blank again. The same goes for the third, fourth, fifth...on, on, on to the end. The whole thing is blank, just full of rusty-red spattered empty sheets. I hold a page up to the window to see if there's anything hidden that way. Nothing.  _Maybe it's a trick_ , I wonder.  _Maybe she wanted to make me feel like an even bigger idiot than already do..._

_Okay, think, Electra,_ I tell myself.  _That's what Lylah would want you to do., feel like it was all your fault. She's trying to mess with your head, I know that's what she's trying to do to you, but now's the time to think rationally, as she obviously wasn't doing herself before she blew half her brain out the back of her head._

I know that Lylah was a bit of a cryptography nut, so if she's sent me something, and she's left it blank, well then it's probably coded. Let's see- I wrack my brain, hoping that I can pull something up out of the back, and what do you know, it works!

A memory drifts up out of my head- one from years ago, when we were both just girls on the cusp of hitting puberty and the hormones beginning to make us think of boys, though, as had been a trend in our friendship, we didn't want to tell anyone else, but this time at least, we told each other. I remember whispering in Lylah's ear that I wanted to have some way to talk to her but not have either set of parents know what we we talking about.

_Well, then, dear heart,_  she's said. Little did I know what she was trying to say by that simple little line, but, well, let's just say that now I know how far she was trying to to go. Okay, so according to that old memory, a good way to reveal hidden messages is either one, heat- okay, nope, that's not happening, I 'm not going to rsk burning this- or two, with lemon juice. I just have to hope that Mom won't think that I'm weird for asking for the big bottle that we keep in the back of the fridge. Well, if she does, oh well, and I'll never know unless I try, right?

My mind starts to pipe up to try and answer my silent question, and I tell it, rather impolitely, t stuff its damn mouth. My train of thought obliges, coming to a halt long enough for me to redirect it onto a different track. Unlocking my door, I shout down the stairwell,hoping my calls will be loud enough to get her attention.

"Mom?" I shout, and this time, I don't have to wait for a response.

"Yeah?" she shouts back. "How's the reading going?"

"Um, yeah, about that..." I say. "Do we have any lemon juice? I'm going to need it."

If that question surprises her, she doesn't let on. "Sure, Electra," she calls back up to me, "just clean up your messes after you're done, got it?"

"Yes, Mom," I say cheekily, not having wanted to be reminded of the last time that I left something wet on my floor. Put simply- a trip to the ER and six stitches between my nose and left eye and quite a bit of pain and panic for a main course plus a side of a tetanus shot 'cause I scraped my cheek on the rusty bottom of my sideboard. It wasn't a good day for anyone involved.

But back on track-to the present, where Mom's wondering if I'm ever going to answer. By the clock in my room, I just stood there for about a minute while I was lost in the fairyland of my thoughts. "Sorry, Mom," I say. "I drifted off there for a sec. Yes, I know I have to clean up, I remember what happened the last time."

"Good," she says, any hints of worry gone from her voice. "Sure, come and grab the bottle. You know where it is, right?"

"Mm-hmm," I say. "I'll be right down." I jump down the stairs one at a time. Safe fun, because why take risks, right?

I hope everyone realizes that I was being sarcastic there in my joke about fun, but you never know anymore. I know that if I were to hear somebody say that, I would have thought that I was just being an ass. Oh, what do I know? Maybe I was just trying to be an ass, you know?

Whatever that case may be, I know that I want to know what Lylah wrote me. I walk to the fridge and open it up, rooting around in the back until I find the bottle. I yank it out and close the fridge, brushing my arms at the cold of the fridge. I wonder if somebody cranked the dial on the damn thing all the way up, it felt as if it was ten below in the back of the fridge.

But whatever. Back to business. I take the bottle of juice upstairs to my room and snag the box of tissues from behind the clock. I settle down to reveal Lylah's secrets when I realize that I have nothing to dab the juice on with.

Joints groaning at me as I get up (although I can't possibly have arthritis at eighteen), I head over to the bathroom and root around in the cupboards below the sink until I find the ancient box that Mom must've bought over a decade ago, based on the copyright date on the package. Oh well, at least they'll finally get used, right?

I make sure to check the trash can to make sure that there's a bag inside it (because sometimes we're cheap, so there's only four trash cans in the house- one in the kitchen and one in each bathroom- the guest one downstairs plus one in Mom's bathroom and one in my bathroom, but none in my bedroom), and pick it up to take it with me, hoping that I don't spill any of the Q-tips all over the place, 'cause they're a god damn hassle to clean up.

Reaching my room safely, I set the can down my the head of my bed, and the box closer to where I've dropped the bottle of lemon juice and book, diary, whatever- on the floor.

I drop to the floor and lay down on the shag rug that I bought with my allowance and lemonade sale money six years ago, when the temperatures around here dropped to the coldest ever seen in the area- forty-seven degrees below zero. Not even the best furnaces could heat houses that winter, and ours? Well, it's forty-odd years old, maybe even more so, so do ya think it could've kept up?

Here's that answer put simply- if you think that the answer is yes, I'd suggest that you call your nearest mental institution immediately and make the arrangements to move in.

In that regard, then, at least the windows could keep out the cold, so it was okay, even though it was only forty degrees throughout the house, maybe, just maybe forty-five if the howling winds outside had decided to give us poor, freezable mortals a short respite.

But like usual, I'm straying from the point again, aren't I?

Yes, yes I am.

So to get back on track, I was  _going_  to read Electra's diary before I was so rudely interrupted, and never mind the fact that I was interrupting myself?

I twist the top off of the bottle of lemon juice and dunk the end of one of the Q-tips into the bottle of juice and start to smear the pages with it, changing swabs every few pages as the coppery dried on blood that stains the pages requires.

After I'm done, I turn back to the first page. I frown, wondering why nothing's shown up on the pages yet, they can't be blank...

At that very moment, a thought pops to the forefront of my jumbled mess of a head, and I want to smack myself for being so foolish.  _Of course_ , I think.  _Lemon juice only reveals messages if it's been dried, goofball!_

Laughing to and at myself, I snatch the book up off the floor, twist the cap back on the bottle (no spills this time!) and dash back into the bathroom. Rooting around in the cupboard again, I curse my ever crazily messy self, then pull out my hairdryer from the very back and set to work on untangling the snarled mess that calls itself the dryer's cord.

Once that's accomplished, I plug the dryer in, wait the few seconds it takes for the stupid thing to power on, and set to work.

It doesn't take long for words to start showing up as the pages start to toast a perfect marshmallow tan. I skim the first eleven words:

_You should know, Electra, that I'm holding you accountable for this._


	7. Chapter 6: Sour As A Lemon

_You should know, Electra, that I'm holding you accountable for this. Of course you'll want to know why, but I'm not going to tell you. Oh, no, no, no, I'm going to make you read through all of this to get to the point. By then end, I hope you'll understand what was going through my head. Maybe you'll even feel sorry for me. Well, I know that's never going to happen, not anymore._

_I know that I won't feel sorry for you after I blow you to high heaven. Well, not to high heaven, 'cause you don't deserve to go there. No, the pit down below would suit your kind so much better, but well, I'm just going to have to see in a week. I've managed to pick out the perfect set of tools for the job. I hope you enjoy the messes, you always were an expert at causing them._

_Of course, what's the point in writing any of this if I don't explain myself?_

_Don't answer that, I already know- absolutely fucking nothing, that's what._

_Okay, so where's the best place to start? According to my mom, as much of a pain in the rear (both a figurative one and a literal one) that she can be sometimes, she has a point. In order for things to make sense here, I'm going to have to start at the very beginning, 'cause that's the very best place to start._

_When I count the reasons that I hate Electra, it's one, two, three, on and on and on, and the first goes like this: 'you and me.' Yeah, that's a very big reason. A girl likes fidelity in the one she's dating. Now, of course, Electra, should you ever find this, you're going to think that you were never unfaithful, 'cause I get the horrible feeling that that's exactly what you're going to think, but I'd like you to know that I saw you kissing Max Brown in the hallway, and that was not ten minutes after you had promised me to my face that you would always love me. Then you go and cheat on me?_

_That's my issue, Electra, and fuck you if you can't get your fat head around it.Actually, you know what? I think that's exactly it, 'dear heart,' I think that that's exactly what did us in, your fucking around. Oh, okay, so maybe you didn't actually screw him, but from what I saw, how passionately you two were locking lips (and tongues, from the looks of things), it wouldn't take an expert to figure out what that meant, and need I reiterate that we had done the same thing over at my house just two days before?_

_That's what they call being a bitch (well, really, it's worse than that, Electra, they call those people sluts for damn good reasons)._

_Oh, and like the old soothsayer said to Caesar, beware the ides of March._

_Oh, wait, I forgot. You can't._

_And as for a third 'whoopsie' in less than half a page, I just realized that I've been straying too far from what I wanted to say originally. Who knew you could take relationship advice from one's own distractibility?_

_Eh, we all learn something new every day. Your new lesson for the day will be from me, and you want to know what it's going to be about? Well, I suppose that you probably don't want to hear about it, but too bad. If you want to feel better about yourself, you're not going to find it here, oh no no no, Electra, but what you_ _are_ _going to find is a puzzle._

_Well, what kind, Lylah, you ask?_

_That's for me to know and for you to find out, Electra. I dare you to keep reading this. Here, let me offer you some advice, and I think I'll actually let you off the hook just a little, how's that sound?_

_Watch out for the good girls, they're the one who will take your heart and then put it into a blender. It hurts, do please try to avoid those kinds of people._

_I'm sure you're wondering why I've been such a bitch in what I'm writing, why I'm taking all of this hurt out on you. Well, that's simple, and yet it's really not. Let me let you in on a little secret, Electra._

_The day after we broke up, I found myself at a party. I'm sure you can follow where that sentence leads. There was more than enough booze to go around, and in a mountain of self-pity, I decided to down a few shots, I didn't care what they were, and in that moment, I didn't have any shits to give about that, I just wanted to get away from the whole thing, drown my sorrows in a bit of booze._

_Well, that worked, at least, but then I started to feel tipsy. I grabbed a chair for myself, and that's the last thing I really remember about that night. I also remember feeling really excited about something, but also strange. It felt as if there was something wrong, but I couldn't quite tell what it was, just that my legs and insides felt really sore, like somebody had swung a baseball bat at me and planted in right in my crotch._

_You've probably figured out what sort of thing I'm talking about. It didn't feel like it had been a guy, not like I had been stretched out from the inside. No, it felt like it had been a girl. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I must've laid there for hours while my head throbbed and a cold breeze blew against everywhere. When I finally managed to fight my heart back out of my ears, I looked at myself, and I immediately started wishing that my head was still pounding. I was naked, completely so, and my clothes were nowhere to be found. There were dark patches on the ground, and I didn't really want to think about that. I was lying in the middle of a hay barn down on South Burlington Ave, I'm sure you know the place that I'm talking about._

_There was still too much of whatever drug that you poisoned me with in my system for me to think straight, all I could do was get up on shaky, bloody legs and force them to get up, ignoring the nagging worries that were starting to worm their way up from the recesses of my brain._

_Based on the moonlight that was streaming through the window, it was nighttime, and whoever it was was kind enough, if that sort of wording even fits the situation, to leave a ratty, bloody towel behind. I wrapped myself up in it and barrelled out the door, ignoring everything, the pain in my abdomen, the pain in my feet as they slammed along the dry dirt and snow of the field and the cracked and rutted asphalt of the roads that led to my house. The house was dark, but both cars were gone and the back door was unlocked._

_Slamming the door behind me, I locked it and ran to my bedroom, where I noticed that there was a note pinned to the towel._

_Too beat and whored up to think, I passed out, and I was out. I woke up the next morning with not a drop of headache, but in place of that was an incredible ache. I ran to the medicine cabinet and gulped down painkillers. Those, at least, helped me get the pain down and left me to cry. The house was empty, at least, so at least I wouldn't get smacked for being a 'pussy wuss,' in the words of a select few. It was then that I noticed that there was a note pinned to the back of the towel. I know you know what it says, but just for the shits and giggles, I'll tell you what it said-_

_Dear Lylah,_

_This is goodbye, 'dear heart.'_

_Thought I should give you a few more shots to say so._

_~Electra_

\--

At that, I stop reading, I'm too effed off. No, no, no, no, I can't deal with this. My dead ex-girlfriend is accusing me of drugging and raping her? Uh, no, fuck that, bitch, I have no clue what you're talking about!

 _Okay, Electra,_  my brain warns me.  _Calm down, calm down, calm down. Think rationally, now that it's really, really obvious that Lylah wasn't. Okay, okay, okay okay okay okay- Aaaugh! I can't do it any more, Lylah!_

_At risk of me sounding like I'm the one who went completely fucking off-the-foam-padded-walls crazy, now I want to do the same thing._

_NO, I'm not crazy, I promise, I really do, and no, I'm not going to go shoot up the place. I just don't want to feel like this. I didn't even know that's how she felt about me, and having somebody shove that in my face, well, it's one hell of an eye-opener, that's for damn sure. Well, what was I supposed to do? I had no idea that she felt that like that, and I know one thing more- I would have done all that I could to make her feel better about her, about us, about any of it._

_Well, I can't now, and I don't know if one can say it enough, but damn, gunshot wounds fucking hurt!_

_Yeah, well, that and having someone put themselves where they shouldn't have been in Lylah, that's what really hurts. I was supposed to have supported her, cared for her when she needed it, and I failed. I failed, and I did so in spectacular fashion. Damn, I'm an idiot, and I'm really feeling like slapping myself for being so stupid? How wasn't I able to tell? It should've been obvious, like how she drew into herself after that day and stopped talking to me most of the time, except if it was to curse me out, and yet... it wasn't._

_But what was I supposed to do about it? Well, as the old adage goes, hindsight_ _is_ _twenty-twenty, and I can tell with my foresight that I'm going to have to do something about this soon. I snag my laptop from where I've left it under my bed and boot it up. We may not have much money, but well, that's what three summers of delivering newspapers every day will get you- the top of the line model Dell Inspiron. It was nice then, but that was two and a half, nearly three years ago, and it's not nearly the best anymore, but it's better than most and it'll certainly do the job._

_Once the darn thing is past the boot-up screen, I plug in my password (which has been one of the only secrets I've been able to keep these last few weeks) and open up my email. I open up the archive and skim the taglines of the messages that I've been sent. This thing goes back for years, ever since I opened this account nearly six years ago, a grand total of six thousand-plus messages. It takes me another twenty minutes of careful browsing to find the message that I'm looking for, one that I sent Lylah from just before when I first asked her out, asking her if I could come over:_

_\--_

_To: Lylah Loxley_

_From: Electra J. Stehlen-Wilde_

_Subject: What Do I Do?_

_Sent: 8:37 AM EST 4/12/17_

_Dear Lylah,_ the message begins,

_I have a few questions for you, and no, I'm not trying to interrogate you. All I'd like to know is if you'd like a study buddy for the test in Algebra. I know how it's been kicking your but recently, mine too, but I think that if we were to work on some problems together, maybe we'd be able to figure it out._

_I can even bring some cookies if you'd like._

_Please reply soon!_

_Ever your friend,_

_Electra_

_\--_

Well, that seemed innocent enough, but were either of us really planning to study? Well, I know that I was, but I'm not quite sure about Lylah. I know what happened afterwards- I was the one to make a move first- I leaned over and whispered that I  _really_  liked her.

Now, I know that there are going to be those crabby people out there that have never been kids, or at least, not kids here in the twenty-first century. Just a PSA for those people (you know who I'm talking about)- to say that you  _really_  like someone, well, that pretty much means that you're telling them 'I love you,' but of course, I was incredibly naive then, so who knows what I thought it meant?

I know now, unfortunately, but it's too late to make amends.

Well, I had no idea where that whole thing was going, not one clue. That one trip over to study for her Algebra exam turned into a trip over every week, and before either of us could really figure out what had happened during those months, until that infamous movie date. We knew what was happening then, and although I don't know what's well and truly going on, that's going to be my challenge to figure it out, and that problem solving starts now.

But where to start, where to start, where to start? Just like me, isn't it, to dive headlong into a project, so much so that I won't be able to pull myself out of the muck, and then try my darned hardest to do just that?

Whatever this path may bring, whether it be resolution or just more anger (I'm sincerely hoping that it'll turn out to be the first), I'm sticking to it. I don't give a damn how many more blows I have to suffer to get to the bottom of this mess, but whatever it takes, that's what I'm going to give and more. But first, before I manage to get myself into that sticky mess up over my head, I'm going to need to come up with an excuse to get out of the house.

As much as I hate lying to Mom, and as much as I hate to admit this sorry fact to anyone, it's become a bit of a necessity in my life and I've managed to become much more proficient in that delicate art that I had ever thought possible.

Now, that's not to say that I'm a liar, oh, no, no, that's not it at all, not even close. If anyone knows the expression 'trying to explain the unexplainable,' like in my case trying to explain my sexuality to anyone, then maybe you'll understand why. There are just some things that happen in our lives- in everyone's lives- that they have no rational explanation for, and right now, that 'thing without a rational explanation' is my desire to crack this nut right open, so yes, it's going to take a lie. A white lie, none the less, but a lie anyways.

I hop down the stairs one at a time, thinking all the while that I  _really_  don't want to get myself killed today, but at the same time knowing that I'm going to have some  _very_  close calls before this wild goose chase is over with...

Well, that, and trying to remember that just because Lylah's words are as sour as a lemon to me, that gives me no reason to keep fuming. I'm keeping a clear head and a hopefully clear conscience this time.

Wish me luck.


	8. Chapter 7: Robin Hood's KIt

**Six Years Earlier**

Everywhere I go, I have people ask me what my name means, 'cause wasn't Loxley where Robin Hood was from?

In that case, I have a question for you- do you want the short answer or the long answer?

If you wanted the short answer, you're not going to find it here. Well, I'll try, but no promises. I've had a bit of a rough day at school, and that's one of the problems with being thirteen, I'd say. Emotions are always high around this time of year, considering that we'll be getting out of school at the end of ou fifth grade year. Me, I can't wait, and I'm hoping that Electra will let me ask her out.

Wish me luck, okay?

-Lylah Loxley

\--

In retrospect, I've discovered that foxes are supposedly are very protective...

Now to tell my mom about this. I don't really want to think about what she'd do when she finds out. Well, I don't suppose that I'm going to have to wait much longer to find out, as I'm heading downstairs to tell her right now....

\--

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah, honey? Are you okay? How's the reading going?"

"Well," I say, whistling cheekily, "that's pretty much what I wanted to talk to you about. Oh, and I think we might need to get the men in blue involved in this one..."

"What?" She says, sitting straight up in her chair, a look of concern making the frown lines on her forehead creased into full wrinkles.

"Yeah, I thought that might happen. So, see, I found out what Lylah wanted to tell me, and, well, let's just say that she was really pissed, and I don't think that there's really a way to describe just strong the emphasis on 'really' should be. Let's just say that, shall we? Oh, and you're right, we should probably bring all of this to the police."

Mom sighs. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I take it that it's evidence?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," I say, shaking my head. "It was certainly some good insight, but I still don't get it. She made her point exceedingly clear, it's just that I can't imagine that she was truly that crazy, or if she was, how could she have gone off the rails in a matter of such a short time?  _That's_ what I don't understand. Her home life was shit, but she was strong, stronger than I thought possible from someone our age, you know?"

"People are surprising, Electra. Maybe she just-"

"Just what, Mom?" I cut her off, feeling my temper flare a little. I fight it back down, and try to speak again.  _This_  time, I manage to stay calm. "Sorry. I'm a bit on edge right now, that's all. I just don't think that her crazy was all her."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That, dear mother of mine, is something that I'd like to keep to myself until we talk to the police."

"The police?" If she's surprised, which I can tell she is, her inherent 'mom instincts' are holding that in check. After nineteen years of me and my wild rollercoaster ride of a life, she's managed to get pretty good at it.

"Yes, Mom," I say, hoping that my tone doesn't sound exasperated, because I'm not, and I don't want to give her the wrong idea, "the police."

"What do you need to talk to them about?"

"Mom," I sigh, no longer caring about what I sound like to her, "weren't you just telling me before I went upstairs that you wanted to know if there was evidence in it so that way we could bring it to the cops?"

She sighs again, and I start to wonder what's wrong. "Mom, are you okay?" I ask, putting one reassuring hand on her shoulder. "It's fine, Mom."

"No, it's not," she snaps back. "No, Electra, it's really not okay, I'm not okay...argh! Just...no."

"Oh-kay then," I say, surprised by her outburst, though I really shouldn't be, she's just dishing back to me the frustration I served her.

"Look, Electra," she grumbles, "I want to help, I really do, but can I please have a few minutes?"

"No problem," I grumble, walking back out of the living room and up the stairs to my room. I drop myself down onto the floor and rest my head against the wooden outer side rail of my bed. God, I'm beat, even though I just woke up not an hour and a half ago, and-

_Oh, shit._

Amy's expecting me over today, and I have to be there, but Mom's pissed...I don't know how the hell I'm going to manage this one. But wait a sec- I could call her.  _Duh, Electra,_ I think.  _How did you forget about that one?_

_I have no idea. I'd better go grab the phonebook and look it up, sounds like a storm's rolling in, and in this area, when the weather turns rough, so does the cell service, not that it isn't shit already, but whatever. I really don't know what's been going on with me recently. I can't seem to keep myself on one path for longer than thirty seconds. Now, I know that that's not true in the literal sense, but anything can seem true when you've been through the same kind of situations that I've been, you know?_

_But then again, I really should probably just look it up online, save Mom the hassle of having to deal with that. Yeah, that sounds like a better idea to me, Electra,_ my brain says.  _Save yourself the trouble of having to deal with a crabby mother that'll probably beat your ass. I don't know what it is, maybe just the weather, maybe her having lost her job less than a week ago, I don't quite know what the deal is with her right now, I really don't and I really don't want to push it. I hope any sane person will understand that, even if the ball of yarn in their head's coming a bit unwound like it is in mine._

_Fine,_ I decide,  _I'll do just that, save myself the risk of getting my sorry behind yelled at any more than it already has been._ With that, I snag my laptop back out from under my bed and boot it up. While I wait for that, I look outside at the weather, and-

Damn it, it's going to rain again. We  _just_  got the sun back, can't we please, please, please just have a little peace and quiet without the rain interfering with my plans?

Well, I know that answer already, it's not. No, I can't because as I said earlier, the best laid plans are always-  _always_ \- the ones that the weather fucks with, you know? Oh, well, I guess. I just need to get her phone number, and for that, well, I'll look it up, eh? No use in moving from here, it's safe.

But seeing as the universe in a nasty mother fucker, it loves, just  _loves_  to play with me. As soon as the stupid this is up and running, I notice that it only has one percent of its battery life left, 'cause for whatever reason, I must've forgotten to plug it back it when I went downstairs. I snag the cord from out under the heap of dirty laundry that I haven't felt like doing recently, and plug it in, but as soon as I do, I get one nasty shock, and the lights flicker and go out.

Nursing my thankfully only slightly crisped hand, I use the other to push myself up off the bed and realize that that must've been a power surge or something else equally as painful if you happen to be holding onto metal that's connected to a plug. It wasn't much, only a sliver of a shock, but god damn, it fucking hurts.

Blinking my eyes to clear away the tears that I can tell are forming there, 'cause my glasses are getting all fogged up, I head into the bathroom and take them off, hoping that no one sees me. But of course, peace and quiet? In my head, that's never going to happen, now is it?

Well, maybe calling Amy will help. At least the landline will still be usable, that always has power, and really, I prefer it to any cell phone.

_Wait, what?_

Yeah, you heard me right. I'm always able to call out to somewhere on a landline, whether there's power or not, which makes it great for me, 'cause in this area of Central New York, where cell service is shit and the internet is only slightly better if you're lucky, the power goes off about three times a month, and that's in a good month...

So yeah, the landline's still alive and well here, and in fact, it's thriving. Speaking of thriving, you know what's also thriving right now? My nervousness, which has come up crashing over me all of a sudden for whatever reason, what that reason is, well, I don't know. I just know that I've got to get that call made.

But wait just a sec, I don't have any damn clue what Amy's number is. Then I mentally slap myself for being so stupid. How could I have forgotten? Duh, if the power's out, we're going to have to go all manual, which means going downstairs, which, from the flickering light that's coming through the slim space in between the bottom of the door and the floor, Mom's managed to get herself a fire started, and it doesn't smell like she's set anything on fire yet. No comment on that matter.

I open the door and hop back down the stairs again, one by one, coming to a soft landing at the bottom  _this_  time. I remember one time that I came down the stairs and I hit my heel on one of the sharp nail heads that got left at the bottom from after when we tore out the carpet. Yeah, that one hurt like a bitch, let's just leave it at that.

Anyways, this time I have more luck in regards to where my feet land, and I manage to escape any slivers, but what I  _don't_  manage to avoid is stubbing my toes on the door as I push it open.

Grumbling softly to myself, I look over to the fireplace, and I notice with the aid of its comforting orange-yellow flicker, that Mom's not tending the flames. Instead, it looks like she's put the old cast iron teapot on the flames and like she's in the process of making herself a nice cup of tea.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Hmm?" Mom says, not looking up from the kettle. "Hang on, Electra, this thing is so close to boiling, and I'd rather not deal with any more trouble tonight, you know? Losing power and not having the money to buy a generator, oh well, I guess, and I'm thankful that we were fortunate enough to have enough trees in our back yard to provide us with a decent supply of fallen sticks and logs and the like."

"As am I, Mom," I say. "Speaking of not having a job, when was your interview at school again?"

"I don't know, Electra. It was supposed to be today, but seeing as the power's out and the weather keeps getting worse by the second, there's no way in hell that I'm going out there into the open. Why do you ask?"

"Oh no real reason, I was just curious. Mind if I borrow the phonebook?" I ask.

"What do you need that for?" she replies, turning to look into my eyes. Then a flash of remembrance flashes through them, and they soften. "Never mind, I remember, Electra. Amy, right?"

"Yeah, that was it. But I don't have her number, and the power's out, so I can't call her. Do you happen to know her last name?" I ask, mentally slapping myself for forgetting to ask her. Thankfully, I don't have to worry my anxious mind for long, because as soon as that worrisome thought passes, she's answering.

"As a matter of fact, Electra, I do. I take it you want to call her, tell her what's going on here, right?"

"Yeah," I sigh, "Am I  _really_  that predictable?"

She laughs. "Aren't we all? No, Electra, you're not. It was just a thought, you know?"

This time, I'm the one laughing, and I can't quite help it. I just realize how silly I sound, though why that's a reason to laugh, well, stranger things have happened.

"What is it?" Mom asks, clearly puzzled.

"Nothing, nothing," I laugh. "I'm just feeling wound," I say, taking a breath. "I haven't gone out much recently is all, and I think I'm getting a bit of cabin fever, plus the shitty weather, yeah, that's not helping anything. On a similar topic, what's Amy's number? I'd like to ask her to come over."

"Oh-kay, but what makes you think that she's going to want to leave her house in this shit?" she says, gesturing out the window to where the rain is slashing down in sheets, the wind is howling, and the branches of the trees in the back yard are bending precariously.

"Who said I was going to ask her to come over?" I ask.

" _Well_ , you did say that she had invited you over, right?"

I mentally slap myself again. I don't know what it's been with me recently, maybe it's the weather, maybe it's stress or guilt or any combination thereof, but I've been forgetting things left and right, and I don't want to feel any crazier than I already know I am, but this sure as shit isn't helping me any.

"Yeah," I say, "I did, but seeing as the weather's turned nastier than the smell from the incinerator on a hot day, well then, I think it's going to be easier just to call her and not risk any-"

_BOOOOM!_ A crash of thunder shakes the house, causing the old grandfather clock on the left of the fireplace to shake slightly. I clap my hands over my ears, their insides ringing somewhat.

I shake my head to clear it and turn to face back to Mom, who hasn't moved. I don't know how that didn't startle her, but I get the feeling that it's just me. Who in the world is so foolish as to jump at a clap of thunder?

There's only one answer to that- me, and I know it. That's why I want to talk to Amy, I know she'll understand what I'm going through, and Mom deserves to know too, which means I've got to stop seeming like a complete weirdo, except that anyone who knows me knows without a doubt that I could never do that.

"Sorry, Mom," I say, laughing nervously while hoping that I haven't made a complete fool of myself, not like I nearly did just shy of a month ago. Yeah, it just goes to show how frazzled I've been that I can't even remember what the date is. It doesn't really matter now, does it? I don't think so. Anyway, now to return to the regularly scheduled, not  _inside Electra's thoughts_  programming:

"Sorry," I say, not laughing this time. "I figured that I should still get ahold of Amy, even though the weather is acting like a crabby bitch, and I wanted to use the phone to call her, but I don't have her number."

"As I said, dear, that's not a problem," she says, snagging a pencil and from the crossword puzzle that I just now noticed was at her feet. "Can you get me a sheet of paper off of the pad that's on the dining room table? I was making a list of emergency supplies that we're short on so that I can go to the store and stock up once the weather lets up and the roads are clear."

"Sure I can," I say, doing as she asks although I really,  _really_  don't want to give up the cozy spot I've found for myself in front of the fire. I snag the pad and the pencil that was sitting on top of it, bringing it to Mom and then dropping myself down back near the fire again, but also within the reach of Mom's arm so that way neither of us have to move again, at least until the fire starts to die down, but judging from the heat and height of the flames, that shouldn't be an issue in the slightest.

"So, Mom," I say, "what's that number?"

Instead of replying, she takes the pencil, makes a few quick strokes on the top sheet of the pad, then tears said sheet off and hands it to me.

I read the info that she's written- it looks like Lylah's number, plus something else underneath that I don't quite recognize. The numbers that she's written, however, are plenty readable: (607)-555-0112.

"Thanks, Mom,: I say, giving her a big squeeze. "You know, you don't need to worry about me so much. It gives you premature gray hair."

"I've already gotten some of those, and don't you worry about me worrying about you. I'm your mother, it's part of the job description. When you become a mom, you'll understand where I'm coming from."

"I'm sure," I say, yawning despite the fact that I'm not tired. "Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome," she says, and we both sit in silence for a while longer and watch the fire throw up embers.

After a while, though, I get tired of just sitting, and so I get up to stretch my legs. Well, stretch my legs and make a call.

I manage to stumble around in the dark of the rest of the house for a few minutes until I find the wall phone, and as soon as I do, I snag the handset off the receiver and punch in Amy's number. Thankfully, it rings through.

On a short side topic, this is why I love landlines- I'll always be able to call someone, whether we have power or not. But back to the point.

As I listen to the wind howling outside, I hear Amy pick up on the other end. "Who is this?" she asks, "and how did you get this number?"

"It's me, Amy, you remember? It's Electra. My mom gave me your number, if that helps."

"Yeah," she sighs, "it does. I'm really sorry, Electra, but I've been on edge ever since the storm started, and my mom and dad wouldn't let me go outside. After the mess that we had at school, they're really, really paranoid about me. They've been letting up, but the shitty weather hasn't been helping anyone's nerves. I'm on the landline right now, what about you?"

"Yeah, I am. The power went off who knows how long ago, and the weather isn't getting any better. You still willing to listen to what I have on my mind?"

"Of course," she says. "Go on ahead and start talking, I'm listening."

"Good. And Amy?" I ask.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am that you're listening," I say.

"Geez, Electra, are you okay over there? I don't care that the weather's shit, I'm more than willing to risk it," she says, a hint of something indeterminable creeping into her voice.

"No, don't worry, Amy, really, it's fine. The power's out here, and the weather's turning from shit to a fuck-all, if you catch my drift. Besides' won't you need the gas for your generator? The power's out here, and I thought that it would be at your house as well as at mine."

"Yeah, it's off over here, too, Electra. I'm not really worried about the gas. My family has plenty of gas stored for exactly this sort of situation."

"Really, Amy, it's fine. Now, what did you want to talk about?" I ask, hoping that she'll go along with my change in topic. Thankfully, she does.

"Well, Electra, there's one thing in particular that I'd like to ask you," she says.

"Go on, ask me," I urge.

"Well," she says slowly, as if she's unsure of where she's going with this. "Where were you when Lylah started shooting? I was working on learning my way around the building. I have the  _worst_  sense of direction."

"Well, I had the best seat in the house, let me tell you. I got there early and decided that what the hell, I didn't feel like checking in to my first period class, and plunked myself down front and center. I had no damn idea what Lylah had planned," I say, my voice getting louder to make it heard over the roaring of the wind and the slashing of the rain against the outsides of the house.

"Anyways, as I was saying before the rain so rudely interrupted me, I was right in the front, and in hindsight, I suppose that that couldn't have gone any better for Lylah, and no worse for me. Well-" I say, a different thought thought interrupting my earlier train of thought, "-it could have. I could have died, but thank whoever's watching us from above that I didn't."

"No," Amy says. "Thank God. I got lucky, I was up on the second floor wandering around the science wing when I heard the first shots. I dove for cover and hid in the boy's bathroom. Don't judge, it was the nearest doorway."

"God, Amy, why would I judge you? I had to deal with the same shitstorm you did, and hell, you got it worse than I did."

I hear sputtering on the other end of the line for a few seconds, but then Amy's voice, slightly more frazzled than earlier, comes back on the line. "Electra, enlighten me, please. Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean? You were the one who got shot five times, and I was able to cower in the bathroom in relative safety, so you're going to have to help me out here, 'cause I don't get it, Electra. Just  _how_  on God's green Earth is what I went through harder than what you did?"

I sigh. "Do you want the long and detailed explanation, Amy, or the version that's short and sweet and to the point?"

"How about a bit of both? I've always been the midline, on-the-fence kind of girl, and besides, is there anything better that either of us has to do?"

"Great point, and no, there's not, except stay inside and drink hot cocoa and chat with friends who need support."

This takes me back a little. "Friends?"

"What do you mean by that, Electra?"

I scramble for words, hoping that I'll be able to salvage the situation. "I didn't mean it in the way that you're probably thinking, Amy. I'm just surprised that any person wants to be around me for any longer than they have to. Most of the time, anyone who even comes near me runs away as if I've got some contagious disease. I just don't get it, that's all."

"I can appreciate that, Electra. That's what people did to me back at my old school, and I learned eventually, after getting my feelings smashed to shards again and again countless times, that what I needed to do was that, even if I didn't say it out loud, was tell those people one resounding 'Fuck you!' After I did that, insults just slid off me."

"Thanks for the advice, Amy. Now, here's that explanation that I've been accidentally dragging on and on: Lylah was my ex-girlfriend, and she didn't take it lightly when I broke up with her and started dating Miguel. That's the most bare-bones rundown that I can give."

"So then I take it that you're-"

"Bi? Yeah, no shit, girl. That really didn't help things, Amy. After all, it was me she was after. Everyone should probably know that, it'll make this whole fucking mess make more sense. As for what I'm trying to say by bringing this whole whole thing up? I feel like this whole thing's my fault, and don't you dare try to tell me that it's not." Of course, as soon as I said that, well...

"NO, Electra, it's not your fault," she says, nearly screaming the 'no.' "No, it's not your fault. You're not in charge of how Lylah felt, and you know what? If you ever thought you were, well, that's the real problem. She was the one who bought the gun, bought the bullets, and brought it in to school to make red and iron-scented a mess of the place, not you. You have to understand that, Electra. It's not your fault. We're all in charge of our own decisions, no one else is, ever has been, or ever will be, so just stop blaming yourself, girl, and live a little, huh? How's that sound, girl?"

"Really, Amy," I say, "it sounds great. There's just one problem, though, and I haven't really managed to figure out a decent solution for it yet"

"Oh?" she asks, "and why's that?"

"I have no idea. Maybe it's guilt, maybe it's something else, but I just don't know. I can't get over the worst part of that day in my head, and I've tried and tried and tried again, but nothing seems to help, you know?"

"I do," she sighs. "I really do. The worst part about it, at least for me, was the fact that I was too much of a coward to help anyone, that I just hid in the bathroom."

"That," I said, "is not cowardice, Amy, it's called  _trying to stay alive_. Just look at me and how foolish I was, facing Lylah down. Look where it got me. You know, I had just gotten out of the hospital, too, and then I manage to spill a few pints here and there, and voila, here we go again."

"That must've been awful," says Amy. "I can't even imagine what that must have been like."

"You don't have to imagine it, Amy, I've plenty of time and one hell of a story to tell."

"I can see that. Any one part that you think deserves to be told above all others?"

"Yes, Amy, there is that one little bit that still needs to be told." Just then, thunder booms in the background. "Did you hear that?"

"I'm pretty sure the whole neighborhood heard that, Electra. You  _sure_ you don't want me to come over?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Amy, but thanks for asking anyways."

"All right then, Electra. Good night, and good luck. Call you again tomorrow? I won't be back to school for a while now. To be honest with you, I've forgotten when I'm supposed to be back."

"Me too, Amy. Oh, and one last thing?"

"What's that?"

"Beware Robin Hood's kit."

"Good point, Electra, good point. Talk to you tomorrow."

"Talk to you tomorrow, Amy."

With that, I hang up the phone, the storm still booming outside, and sink back into my chair by the fire. Before I know it, my eyes are slipping shut, and I'm asleep.


	9. Chapter Eight: Shrink, Shrank, Shrunk

January 1, 2018

Dear Journal,

I'm sure no one's going to understand anything I tell them, least of all the people who are paid sixty bucks an hour to do do nothing but listen. That, my friends (oh, wait, I forgot, I don't have any), is why I need to talk to someone, and I should probably do it now, before I go absolutely off the walls mad. Electra broke up with me yesterday, and she still hasn't told me why, the cunt. I did absolutely nothing to her, the bitch, and I was really looking forward to our date tonight. We were going to have both sets of parents come out to eat with us and we would let them know then. But oh, no, no, it looks like Electra thinks she's too good for all of that. She came up to me this morning as I was about to reach over and give her a peck on the cheek. She stopped me before I could, per her hand on my chest, and then told me that we were through.

But not in those words, no, not at all. If she had said it like that, exactly like that, I would've understood. I sure would have been pissed, that's a give, but I think I would have understood that better than the 'I can't' that she gave me. Nothing more, just those simple words, and then she walked away.

I feel like Nick from when he was a kit and the Scouts shoved a muzzle on him. I feel just like that, trapped, broken, hurt, and manipulated. I've said nothing to her, just left her be. I can't do it, can't go up to her and say anything, because what comes out won't be anything more than asking 'What did I do wrong?' over and over. No, I have to be the bigger person here, I have to keep my head held up proud and high. I can't let her in, can't let her see how she's broken my heart so badly that I know that there are always going to be the tiniest of pieces missing.

No, I have to be the good girl, just like my parents want, just like I always have to be. I have to keep up the facade that I'm dating a guy. If either of my parents ever found out about us, well, now we'll never know, will we?

I'm willing to take a guess, though. Both of them would wonder what they did wrong to make me come out this way. I bet, no I know that they'd wish that they could take it back, make it so that an 'aberration' like me wouldn't ever exist.

See, this is where I'm lost, where every time the path forks, I always seem to choose the wrong fork in the road. I don't know what I should do. I still love Electra, I always have, and I always will, whether we're together as girlfriends (with no space in the middle) or friends who are girls, with a space in the middle. I want to go back up to her and ask her that very question- what did I do wrong- but I can't bring myself to do it, because my parents would probably find out in some way or another. There's just one more thing that I need to sort out, and that's when my next appointment with Doctor Tremblay will be. Until then, my mind can keep whirling in circles, wondering "What did I do wrong, Electra? What did I do wrong?"

Yours,

Robin Hood's Kit

\--

I really can't say that I'm looking forward to going back to school any time soon. I mean, I've kinda lost track of what today is. I think it's Tuesday or Wednesday, but again, like I said, I don't know. Maybe Mom will. I know that I'm going to have to go back to school at the end of next week, but like hell if I'm looking forward to that.

You know, I wonder if they'll have cleaned up the bullet holes in everything, patched up the mess? I really don't think that they will at any point in the foreseeable future, but hell, you really never know until you get to see it for yourself.

Yah, and there's just one more thing- I'm not really sure that I'm ready to go back to that place, and I don't know if I ever really will be. Call me crazy if you like, but I'm not, and I'm not willing to risk the scrap of any semblance of normal in my head. Now, I'm not a person that really much cares for change, but in this instance, I want a change in my life more than I ever thought possible.

I need to find some way to that that'll get me outside and out out of my head. That's perhaps the most important aspect of the plan- get me out of my head, 'cause it seems like I've been living in there for more time recently than I have been outside of it. Well, it's time to make that happen. It looks like the rain is finally letting up, but the power's still off. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise if it didn't come back on until early tomorrow morning, and that would be a gracious estimate. See, this is why I need to get out. I have a decent bike, and the tires should still be good. It's been like summer her in Central New York this April, so I don't think I'll need a jacket.

"Hey, Mom?" I ask.

"Yeah?" comes the call from across the house. "What is it, Electra?"

"Can I go for a bike ride?"

"Okay," comes her reply, her voice shaking somewhat.

"Are you okay there, Mom? You don't sound too sure of yourself..."

She says nothing at first, but then she sighs, saying, "You're right, Electra, I'm not sure of myself, not anymore, anyways. Ever since what happened at your school, plus the hospital bills, and now I don't have a job, and....," she trails off, tears beginning their salty trek down her cheeks, which like the rest of her, have lost any and all semblance of life. Instead, they're a paled out gray, and there are bags under her eyes. "Mom, you don't look too hot. Let me get you to bed."

"No, no, Electra, it's okay. I just need to have a break, that all."

"Okay, then can I go for a walk?"

She fixes me with a firm stare, her hand clamping around my wrist. "Stay. Safe. If you see something, Electra, I know you hate it, but I  _order_  you to turn tail and run. Promise me that."

"I...um..."

Her grip gets even harder. "Promise. Me. I did  _not_  nearly lose you twice to actually lose you this time."

By this time, the wrenching on my wrist has become almost too much to handle. Damn, she may be on the other side of forty, but she has a better grip than anyone that I've ever met, and it's really,  _really_  starting to hurt.

"Yes, Mom, I promise, just please let go of my arm, okay. I promise, I'll be careful, just let go. Ow!"

She sighs, thankfully loosening her grip on my arm. "Okay, Electra, I'll let you go. Promise that you won't get yourself killed?"

"Yes, Mom, of course."

"Okay. You know, I never would have thought that I would would need to ask my daughter to promise that to me, that she wouldn't get herself a critical case of the deads, you know?"

"You know," I say, "I never would have even thought it a possibility before then. I'll se you when I get back."

"Okay, Electra. Oh, and before I forget, because you know me, if I don't say it out loud to someone, well, then I will do exactly that- your therapist's appointment is going to be coming up soon."

"Got it, Mom," I say, grabbing my jacket and cap just to be safe. "See you in a while, Mom."

"See you in a while, Electra," she replies.

With that, I step outside for only the third time since the fifteenth of last month. I don't know why I haven't gone out more often. As Roosevelt number two said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," yet I'm more afraid every day, and if I'm being completely honest with myself, I've been getting more afraid of what's going on outside in the world around me every day. That's probably not the greatest thing to be. As I walk down the stairs, I hear a voice shouting my name, then I see boy about my age come sprinting towards me. As he comes closer, I can see who it is, and it's someone that I could have gone the rest of my life without hearing from.

" _You again?"_ I sneer. "You couldn't have left me alone? You did enough of that last month, I even have the scars to prove it, so fuck off. I don't want to see you again, and I mean ever. Get out of my life, Miguel. Boyfriends are supposed to protect their girls, and I don't seem to recall you doing that for me. I don't see any reason why this should go on." I turn my head up towards the sky, knowing that he'll think that I'm acting as if I'm a prissy bitch, and you know what? I am, and I don't care.

I don't really care about much of anything anymore, and I'm sure that that shows through. "Just leave me alone already, Miguel. I don't know how many times it's going to take you to get what I just said through your thick skull, but I'll tell you this as a free piece of advice so that you don't fuck up your relationship with your next girlfriend." Pushing him out of my way, I start to head for the baseball field at the school. It's not far, and I need to blow off some steam, even more now than earlier.

I storm off, leaving Miguel behind me in the dust that I throw up behind me. I hear him coughing- must be he breathed in some of the dust that I blew up behind me. Oh, well, I suppose. It serves the bastard right. What kind of man is he if he can't defend his girl?


	10. Chapter Nine: Is This The Real Life, Or Is It Just Fantasy?

Tonight, I'm feeling the angriest that I can ever remember being, even when I was caught in the middle of Lylah's rampage. Then, I was just mostly terrified and scared for my life, and I was pissed that I was going to die like this- a scared, cowardly wuss, shot in the back of the main office by the still-cooling bodies of the principal and superintendent, and the first thought on my mind was how I was going to stay alive. I knew that Lylah wouldn't hesitate to take a crack at me if she had the chance, and that she would hesitate even less to aim that steel cylinder of death and destruction right at the center of my head.

Thankfully for me, she didn't get the chance to do that. No, what happened was even worse- I was the one holding the gun on her, and I pulled the trigger on her.

I realize that I'm an absolutely fucking awful person, that I killed my best friend, my lover, and I haven't done anything about it. Now, I'm sure that that won't make a damn lick of sense unless I explain it, so here goes. I snag my journal back out and flip it through it until I find an open page, of which there aren't many left. Some of them have my sloppy pencil scratchings from when I was in fourth grade, alternating between red ink, green ink, blue and black ink in progressively neater handwriting, until it takes a noticeable dive back down towards where it stood over a decade ago. I don't know why, I have a lot of things going on it my life right now- had a lot of things going on, and still more today. I know that I was supposed to go out for a walk, but after what just happened, I can't bring myself to do it anymore. Instead, tears flowing softly, I duck back in the house, making sure that all the deadbolts have been behind me.

Feeling like a worthless sack of shit, I creep up the stairs into my room and shut the door behind me, making sure that it's locked, then for extra good measure, I take several of the books off of the bookshelf above the food to my bed, making sure that I've picked the heaviest ones, and place them against the door.

I realize that I probably look, in the eyes of the world, like a sack of shit right now, and you know what? I'm all out of shits to give. I realize that to any sane person (disclaimer: I am not one), I probably seem like I'm off my rocker, and I'm seriously starting to wonder if I've finally lost it, or if I never really had it in the first place, and it's only now that it's showing through. I really need to talk to someone, but Doctor Tremblay's a shrink. It's her job to say that there are problems, to train her sharpest lens on someone and nitpick out all their littlest flaws and insecurities, not to help that person solve them.

Though to be completely honest, I'm sure that my brain could stand a good scrubbing. I don't understand why I can't get my mind off all of this shit that I've been going through. I realize that that's probably going to be a really foolish expectation of myself, to be able to move past what happened so soon after, but when my mind hooks on something, it doesn't really like to let go. Maybe it's the guilt, I don't know.

No, scratch that, I do know, and I can't understand it some days. It is the guilt, but for whatever reason, I can't bring myself to fully accept that. I don't know what's going to happen to me if I stay here at home any longer. I'm starting to feel stir-crazy, and with me, that's never a good thing. I need a change in scenery and I need it as soon as is damn possible, but there's no way in hell that that's ever going to happen unless I manage an attitude change, and that's not going to happen unless I quit griping so much and take a more positive outlook on life.

See, and that's another thing that I hate about myself......geez, can't I ever give myself a break?

The short answer to that one? No, not really. I really just have to relax, relax, relax...

I slowly manage to cool my nerves, and as soon as I do, my exhausted brain decides that it wants to call an immediate halt to the proceedings, and darkness overtakes me.

As soon as my eyes slip shut, my brain decides that tonight's feature presentation will be another horror flick, just like it's decided to roll ever since, well, it kinda goes without saying now. I'm a shaken mess, and I feel like I'm al little helpless kid again, and the dream that I'm having doesn't help anything. It's a scene from back when I was a helpless little fifth grader on the cusp of hitting puberty and starting to push a little bit harder, ask for a little bit more. Plain and simple, I was a bitch when I was that young, and there was a group of seventh- or eighth-graders, which, exactly, I don't remember- that decided to push back.

I had just finished mouthing off at them about how they were the world's largest pains in the ass (I had a bit of a mouth on me back then, too) when they decided that they had had enough of me telling them that  _I_  had had enough. One of them hoisted me up by the back of the shirt and shoved me into the lockers and twisted the lock dial shut behind me. I was in there for only a minute or two, until my pounding brought the teachers and principal. I remember rather clearly that the superintendent, who was even more of a colossal senseless sack of horse shit then than he is now asking me what I had done to deserve such a thing. Put simply, he didn't believe me when I told him that I was completely innocent. That's the part of the scene that's rolling through my troubled brain right now, Mrs. McGinnis pulling me out of the locker and Mister Benintendi glaring at me as if he were a dog that I had just beaten.

 _"You know, Electra,"_ he was saying,  _"maybe you should try actually being nice to some people_. _"_  With that, and a flash of anger and indignation, my brain decides that that's enough shit to put up with in one night, it pulls the plug, and I wake up, hot and sweaty and angry, but also frustrated. I know what I need right now, and that's some serious cyclehatrick help, but there are no shrinks around, there's just me and mom and the soft  _hmmm_ of the heat through the vents.

Hoping that the old floorboards in the hallway won't betray my presence, I tiptoe out of my room and into the hallway, being as careful as it's possible for me to be as I walk into Mom's room. I twist open the knob, and to my surprise, Mom's sitting up in bed, the lamp is on, and there's a confused look on her face.

"Electra?" she asks, her confusion clear in her tone as well, "What's going on? Why are you up at just after two in the morning?"

"I had a nightmare," I say, feeling my emotions starting to roil up inside of me again. Swallowing hard, I force them back down again, hoping that I'll be able to keep them from surging back up again any time soon. "I don't really want to go back to bed right now, if that's okay with you, I mean."

Wrapping me into a hug, Mom pats me on the back and whispers into my my ear. "I understand, Electra." She takes my head between my arms and looks at me, and I wonder what she seems through her turquoise eyes. Probably the same thing that she's become used to seeing over the last several weeks: her daughter, amber hair with highlights of a rusty orange around her ears, scared out of her wits by the monsters that have come to visit her in her dreams. Any sane person would call it quits and tell that same daughter that it was just a nightmare, nothing to worry about. Thankfully for me, though, my mom is rather understanding of this whole damn mess that I've been dealing with.

"Shhh, it's okay, Electra," she whispers. "I got you. It's okay, baby girl, I got you. What happened? Did you have a nightmare again?"

"Yes," I say, wiping away my tears and all the while hating myself for crying at all. I look her straight in the eyes, take a deep breath, and say a quick prayer that I'll be able to say what I want to say. "Mom," I say, trying to keep my voice as level as possible and finding a bit of success in that endeavor for once, "I want to go back to school tomorrow. I need to get out of the house. I'm going crazy, and you've always told me to face down my fears with the best attitude that I could, and there's no way that I'm going to manage to get that 'best attitude' back by cowering like a hunted fox here at home. No, I need to go back to school and deal with my problem there. Okay?"

For a split second, she looks like she's going to protest, then apparently decides better of it and merely looks at me like I've just told her that I want to blow my brains out.

Okay, that was a low blow on my part, but it doesn't change the truth- hiding from one's fears is just going to make that person more afraid in the end, and they're just going to find themselves afraid of their fears, too. I know it's true, that's really the issue here, and that's why I just asked of her what I did. Now I'm just going to have to wait until she gets over her sudden shock and answers me soon, 'cause the look of slack-jawed astonishment is starting to scare me just a little bit.

"Uh, Mom? Are you alright there?" I ask, noting that her jaw is still slightly agape and there's a vacant look in the backs of her eyes.

"Huh?" Then the normal light comes back into her eyes, and she turns to me. "I'm sorry, Electra, I zoned out there for a second. Did you say what I think you said there, or am I just hearing things in my old age? Did you say that you wanted to go back to school?"

I laugh, though not so hard that she'll think I'm laughing at her, hopefully. "No, Mom, I can promise you that one thing, at least: you're not hearing things. Yes, that's exactly what I just said. Did you hear what I was saying, or did it shock you too much?"

"No, Electra," she says, "I heard you loud and clear, dear, it's just that I don't understand you some days."

"What don't you understand, Mom?" I ask, standing up and pulling out of her grasp. "I've explained everything to you already, so what is it that there's left not to get?"

She sighs, shaking her head and apparently deciding that she would be better off keeping her mouth shut this time. Personally, I would agree with that sentiment. I don't want to hear anything from her. She's too much of a worrywart, everything and anything that could be considered even remotely dangerous, like going back to school, she doesn't want me to do. No, she'd much rather keep me here in her little protective cocoon of home, where it's warm and 'safe,' but would someone please remind that woman that it's not safe if I'm going to lose it? We may live in a farmhouse, but I'm feeling quite a bit of cabin fever.

I don't know how much time goes by while I'm inside the dream world of my thoughts, but right now, that's the least of my concerns. I wouldn't care if I had been standing there lost in thought for an hour, just so long as I manage to convince Alaina Wilde that it's safe for me to go back to school and to leave the protective umbrella of this roof for a good long while.

I stand there for a few more seconds, wondering how I managed to get myself into another no-win situation, and that answer justs doesn't want to come, but apparently Mom's does, in the form of a gentle hand placed on my shoulder. "Sit down with me, Electra," she says, pushing the blankets off of her legs and swinging them over the side of the bed to sit up straight. When I don't react, she pats the open spot next to her, hoping that I'll do ask she's asking. Fine then.

I take my spot next to her and turn to give her a piece of my mind when she speaks up first. "Look, Electra," she says, "I know that these times have been rough, but please stop taking your shit out on me, okay? I didn't ask for your father to die on us, and I most certainly did not ask for your ex-girlfriend to take out her anger on the entire school, okay? I don't understand what I did wrong, Electra, and you've pretty much refused to talk to me ever since it happened. You've just spent hour after hour, day after day alone in your room, refusing to come out at all unless I can give you something that you want. It's hurting me, Electra, and it's hurting our relationship like you have no idea. I remember when you were a little girl and you were being bullied by that pair of nutjobs from down the road. What were their names? Gus and Jimmy, if I remember correctly."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. Those guys were assholes, and that's putting it as politely as I can manage."

She laughs, and this time, it doesn't sound forced or fake, it sounds like a real laugh. The sound takes me by surprise just a bit, I haven't heard Mom really laugh like that in God knows how long.

"I hope that it's not me that you're laughing at, Mom," I say.

"No, no, Electra," she says, "it's not you that I'm laughing at, I promise. No, what I'm laughing at is just how paranoid I am. I see what you mean about going stir-crazy, but really, Electra, I'm the crazy one of the bunch, not you. You, my dear daughter, are the sanest person that I've ever met. Me, on the other hand, I'm easily wound up and I get insanely worried over the tiniest little things, I fret about everything if it doesn't go perfectly the way that I was expecting it to....Electra, I promise you, you are fine. If you want to go back to school, then go right ahead. It's not my job to micromanage your life. You're not a puppet on a string, you're a living, breathing, wonderful young woman, and if what you want is to go back to school, then you go right ahead." With that, she wraps her arms around me and locks me in a hug so tight that it feels like there's a boa constrictor around my ribcage.

"Gah, Mom," I choke out, "can't breathe. Mother is squeezing me to death. Ack-," I say, though by the time I'm to that point in the sentence, she's let go, and I'm just having fun.

"I love you, Electra," she says, "and don't you ever forget that."

"I promise, Mom," I say, "I won't."

"Good," she says, giving me one last squeeze for good measure. "Now go back to bed, love, and I'll see you in the morning."

I do just that, hopping down to the floor and walking back to my room, not caring about the way the floorboards creak under my feet this time. As I head into my room, I turn to close the door, but then decide not to.  _Might as well try something different,_ I think, and slide exhaustedly into bed.


	11. Chapter Ten: A Real Cattle Prod Of A Day

he next morning, I wake up bright-eyed, but definitely  _not_  bushy-tailed. My hair looks like a rat's nest, although at this point in my life, that's the least of my concerns. At least I don't have to worry about being late- I'm up at quarter of six even though my normal circadian rhythm has me up at half past six. Oh, well, I suppose, at least the rest of my half night's worth of rest.

Oh, well, I suppose. Better that I'm up and neat and tidy on my first day back to school in an ungodly long stretch of time. I yank the covers off and pull myself out of bed, hand instinctively slapping over my mouth as it opens in a yawn. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I snag my glasses off of the top of my dresser and slip them on, feeling grateful to whoever discovered how to grind glass into lenses that the world comes into sharper focus.

After that, I get up and slide my nightgown over my head, and I shiver as a sudden cold gust comes in through the open door. Ah, well, as Mom always used to tell me, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I sure don't think in the slightest that a cold breeze is going to do it. I root through my dresser until I find the combination of top and pants that fit my mood. Slipping those on, I head downstairs towards the kitchen, my growling stomach leading me to gravitate towards the smell of bacon and eggs wafting through the house from the kitchen.

Mom hears me coming and calls out for me- "Morning, Electra. Did you manage to get back to sleep after what happened last night?"

"I did, actually," I say, my lips parting in the barest hint of a smile. "Thanks for asking. What about you?"

"I did alright, I guess. I tossed and turned for a little bit, but I managed." She holds out a frying pan towards me. "You hungry? I was just cooking up something for breakfast."

"Yeah, I am, actually," I say, and my stomach decides to add a loud growl to back me up.

Mom laughs. "I can see that, Electra. "Here," she says, opening up the cupboard that's next to the stove, where we keep all of our plates, and snags one out for me. "I hope you brought your appetite with you. Are you looking forward to your first day back to school?"

"I really don't know, Mom, I haven't been there in what feels like forever, I'm afraid of what they're going to say about me, because I know that they're going to be whispering  _something,_ they just won't be able to resist, but at the same time, Mom, do you want to know something?"

"What's that?" she asks.

"I really don't care anymore. They can say what they want, and it's going to hurt, but I'm just going to need to keep on trucking through the day, and you know, maybe Amy might be back to school as well."

"That's certainly a good way to look at it, Electra," Mom says, setting the pan that she's holding on a trivet on the table. "Have as much of that as you want, I certainly wasn't cooking any for me."

Noticing my confused expression, she smiles, giving a small laugh. "Yes, I'm serious, Electra. I thought that you might appreciate having a hot meal on your first day back, you know?"

"I do," I say, smiling. "Thanks a lot, Mom. You have no idea how much this means to me right now."

"I take it that you're nervous?" she asks. "Are you sure you're going to be able to get all the way through the day, Electra?"

"Yes, Mom, I say, taking a bite of the bacon and eggs that are sitting in front of me any making my mouth water as if I'm a starved dog that hasn't eaten it two days. I can't let myself look like a fool, though, not even in from of my mom! That's the worst kind or embarrassment of them all!

 _I know that today is going to be a good day,_  I tell myself, hoping that I'll have the intestinal fortitude to make that far-fetched hope happen at any time within the next twenty-four hours of my life.

I finish up my breakfast, taking my damn good time so that I can be sure that I'm not stressed. After that, I clear up my place, put the garbage where it needs to go, dump the food scraps into the pail that'll go out to the barn as slop for the chickens, and dive into the bathroom to take a shower before I get ready for the day.

I take my clothes off, chastising myself for not thinking about taking a shower, 'cause I'm a smelly girl if I don't tale one, and place everything on top of the toilet tank. After that, I swing open the towel cabinet and snag a fresh one off of the bottom shelf. Ooh, it looks like Mom ran a load of laundry this morning before I woke up, 'cause the towels are warm. I place that on top of my heap of clothes and step into the tub and decide that I'd really just like to soak for a little bit.

With that, I turn on the tap and let the water run in- nice and warm, just how I like it, but not too warm, and just for good measure, I add a little bubble bath. Yeah, I might be nearly an adult, but cares? I am who I am, you know? Sometimes I just need to let myself pretend that I'm still a kid, and god only knows how many fucking times I've acted like I was nine instead of nineteen. Oh, well, I suppose. The past in is the past, as Elsa put it so well, and I need to learn to let things go. Of course, it's going to be insanely difficult, as anyone who knows me can attest, I have a very hard time letting things go, but there's no way in hell that reconciliation is ever going to happen if I just sit here in the tub and grumble and gripe about what the world has done to me. Yeah, I'm going to have to move my lazy ass and get up out of the tub here, as much as I don't want to.

I push myself up to a standing position, and shut the water off, feeling somewhat thankful that the warm air from inside the tub's stall has warmed the rest of the room, because I hate, hate, hate stepping out of the tub into cold air. It makes me feel things that I'd really rather not, and let's just leave it at that.

Oh, great, I just realized how that probably sounds, and oh my God, no that's not what I meant, get your heads out of the gutter. Or rather., I should probably get my  _own_  head out of the gutter. No, what I was trying to say was that my body doesn't hold heat well- I used to run for the track team, and I had to be skinny for that, and I've never really gained that weight back.

So, what I was  _trying_  to say, before my sensibilities so rudely interrupted, was that because I'm so lean, I don't have any blubber to keep me warm, and so stepping into a cold bathroom while soaking wet is horrible torture, but what's that going to matter in the end? I have to get ready for school, and I keep managing to get myself off track, which really tees me off.

I dry myself down and chuck the towel into the hamper and dress myself back up. It's then that I notice just how tired I look- there are bags under my eyes and the skin right above the bags is the unsightly purple of a bruised plum. I really don't want to put makeup on today, but what do I want to deal with less- the itchiness of my skin at having to be covered up, or being mocked for looking like a slob?

I'm not quite sure about that one, actually, but seeing as I want to be ready on time, and I get the feeling that I'm running behind, I'm going to go with the no makeup option. I brush my hair back into a fox-tail (my term for a ponytail, because the way mine grows in always looks like fox fur) and brush my teeth and spit, hating the sour taste that the combination of breakfast and baking soda creates in my mouth.

I cup my hands below the faucet and drink my fill, rubbing my hands on my pants when I'm done. I head back out into the kitchen, and I notice that it's nearly quarter after seven, which means that the bus is going to come in just under ten minutes. Shit! Luckily for me, though, Mom seems to have everything under control, which, for me, is a godsend, because I sure as fucking hell do  _not_  have everything under control.

Mom notices my panic and places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, Electra," she says, her voice soft and calming, reassuring my shaken nerves. "It's going to be okay, you know."

"I know, Mom," I say, sighing, "but I can't quite convince myself of that yet. I'm afraid, you know?"

"I do, Electra, I do," she says, draping her arm around my shoulders and giving me a soft peck on the cheek. "I see you've decided to go au naturel today, eh?"

"Yeah, I did," I say, smiling for my first time in way, way,  _way_  too long. "I just figured 'what the hell,' you know? They're probably going to say all kinds of nasty shit about me at school, both where I can hear them plus behind my back, and I'm just going to have to face the music, you know? Even if that music happens to be the Imperial March out of  _Star Wars_ , I'm going to have to face their lies and hatred with my head held high." I sigh. "Oh, who am I kidding? I'm not really capable of doing that, I'm the most sensitive person that this world has ever seen. They're going to have a field day with me, and I get a sinking feeling right in the pit of my gut that I can pretty much guess what they're going to say about me once I go back to that place where one's emotions are stuffed into a shredder..."

"I can appreciate that feeling, Electra," Mom says, reaching out to hand me a brown paper bag. "Which," she continues, "is exactly why I packed you a lunch. I thought I should help you take a little stress off, and besides, you look like you're going to need all the help you can get today."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, my tone hard as steel, though Mom's dealt with me dishing her out enough sarcastic remarks in the time that I've been alive that she's learned my habits, especially when I'm nervous. I tend to play my feelings off by being sarcastic to everyone that I run across, but I'm trying to teach my mind not to act like that anymore. Instead, I look out the side window by the table- it's a robin's egg blue morning, perfect in my mind, but it'll be ruined pretty soon if I can't manage to stop getting myself distracted by every single little thing and keep my mind on the task at hand. As much as I  _really_  don't want to go, I really need to get my ass going.

I give Mom a quick smile to (hopefully) restate that I was just being foolish, and head out to the living room to grab my backpack. I unzip the center pouch and stuff the small brown bag in as far as it will go. I don't give a damn about whether it gets crushed, and besides that, I don't have any more damns to give anymore, I'm pretty sure that the devil has decided to keep all of my extras so that way he'll have enough when he comes to get me in however long that will be, enough to damn me for not doing enough to help anyone...

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts as hard as I can and not have it come loose at the seams, I zip up the top pouch, calling out to Mom before I go out to the bus, I think it's going to be time for me to be out there by now.

Just then, I hear a loud  _honk!-honk!_ from out front, and what do you know, I'm going to need to run! I sprint the hundred-odd feet from the back door as quickly as my dejected self can manage.. As I haul my frazzled body and even more frazzled mind up the steps, I notice that the bus driver (along with every other twerp on the bus) is staring at me. Feeling self-conscious, I ask "What is it?" Almost instantly, one of the kids on the back of the bus decides to pipe up.

"We've been wondering where you were, Wilde. Couldn't run away from the dogs forever, could you, foxy?" At that, I feel a sharp spike of anger rise up in me. I stand up to give the jackass a piece of my mind, but Mr. Marchione, the bus driver, puts his calloused hand on my shoulder to stop me.

"Sit down, Electra," he says, in a tone that implies that  _resistance is futile_. "We need to keep going, or the administration will have my ass for not bringing everyone in on time."

"Yes, sir," I mumble, my ears and cheeks burning red-hot in either embarrassment or shame, maybe even a little bit of both, and a whole heaping shit-ton of fury towards that prick. I can guarantee one hundred and fifty percent that he has no idea what I've been through. In his mind, I'm willing to wager quite a large chunk of change, I'm the slut that got his friends killed and then ran away after instead of facing the music like she should have.

Well, if this short moment here is going to serve as an indication of how the rest of the day is going to go on me, well then I'm absolutely, completely, royally fucked. I know that he's going to be hoping that I fall for his trap and bite, but there's absolutely no way that I'm going to bite. I have bigger fish to fry, and that school of piranhas will be coming at me full steam ahead by then end of the day.

"What, foxy, are you scared?" I hear the kid catcall me again, but I say nothing, and so he keeps at it, "What, you scared, slut? Afraid your little bitch won't be there to screw around with you after school? That's right, I heard why that psycho bitch went after you last month, whore." When I say nothing, as I'm fighting my hardest to keep my internal torment of emotions from tearing away with me, he keeps at it, and I keep ignoring, although I can't help but wonder why Mister Marchione is letting these sorts of wild accusations fly on his beloved bus Number 122, but he is. I can see him looking through his sunglasses in the security mirror that's bolted firmly to the inside of the bus just above the windshield, and I hate the man.

Ten minutes later, when the bus creaks on into the school parking lot on the back side of the building, hydraulic brakes groaning in agony, I've heard more catcalls and curse words thrown in my general direction than somebody who actually sleeps around, and, although my face is placid, it's a pale shade of whitish-gray typically reserved for corpses. I've been fighting to hold the tears and retorts at bay and I've also been wishing that I could just curl up and hide, like the kicked dog I am.

With those thoughts in mind, I stumble blindly, deafly, and completely unfeeling into the hallway. Davenport's high school isn't very large, I know this building like the back of my hand, and I use that mental map to guide me to a place where I know that I'll be save, or at least, so I hope. I can just cross my fingers and pray to whatever God might be up there listening that they can grant me safe passage into the building and to the left down the main hallway, then down the next right into the arts department, also home to the teachers' lounge. Although the tiny little room is supposedly off-limits to any student, that rule hasn't ever been enforced by any member of either the faculty, staff, or administration.

Usually, considering that it's roughly ten minutes before the monotone of the 8:03 first period bell, I can find one of my favorite teachers, the art director, one Ms. Arabela, standing by the water cooler sipping on a glass, and that same luck extends out to me this morning as well.

"Hey, Ms. A," I call out to her as I step in through the door frame. "How was your month without me?"

"It was fine, Electra, but I'm going to give you fair warning ahead of time, because if you haven't already been dropped into the deep end of this sticky tar pit, I can guarantee that they're going to be dragging you down on in deep and hot and fast real soon, my dear. Let's just say this, Electra, the rumors that I've been hearing floating around these halls over the course of the last several weeks, well, they haven't been pretty. No, Electra," she continues, "they've been pretty damn obscene, and I'm not at liberty to repeat what they said, because I still don't have tenure here, and if anyone on the administrative staff were to overhear me repeating to you what they said, then I'd be on my way out the door with all my belongings in a crate, never to return or to be seen or ever heard from again."

"That bad?" I ask, my spirits dropping impossibly lower than they were just a split second earlier. "You can tell me, I promise I'll never repeat what you say to anyone else. Scout's honor," I say, holding my hand up in the three-fingered salute of the Boy Scouts, but of course, for me, it looks ridiculous. I'm a girl, and they don't let girls in the Boy Scouts yet.

"Yes, that bad," she says, "and as I said, I'm not really at liberty to say, unless you like the idea of me losing my job..."

"No! NO, that's not it at all!" It's then that I notice that she's clamped her hands over her ears, and she's looking at me as if she's hoping I don't come at her. "Sorry, Ms. A," I say in a lower tone of voice. "Did I shout that at you?"

Prying her hands off of her ears, she gives me her response. "Yes, Electra, you did, but I'm okay, I promise. You didn't hurt me." She chuckles nervously, one hand behind her head. "So, how was your time off?"

_Sigh...no point in making myself look like an ever bigger ass..._

"Fine, Ms. A, just jim dandy. Might you know where I can find myself a safe space to hide for the rest of the day? If the kids have been whispering about me that much, well, I don't want to have to deal with it. I've already had to to put up with enough tomfuckery this morning from the assholes on the bus, and well, I'm sure you get the rest." I turn on my pleading face, hoping that will change her mind, but nope, that doesn't happen. Instead, she puts her hand on my shoulder, meaning to be reassuring, that I can guarantee, but instead it just pisses me off. I'm sick of people trying to pretend that it's all going to be alright, but what's even worse is when somebody pretends that I did nothing wrong, and I'm really starting to feel like that right now. Of course, I know that Ms. Arabela isn't the kind of person who would do that to me, and that just makes things worse.

Taking as deep of a breath as I can manage before my lungs burst, I let it out through my nose, willing myself to stay calm.  _Yes, Electra,_ my mind says,  _I know that your emotions are running sky-high right about now, but you need to rein yourself back in. You can't just go around blowing up on people because they unintentionally slight you. I would hope that you know that after eighteen years, right?_

_Right._

"Sorry," I say, looking down at the cracked tile floor beneath my feet. "I know it probably looks like I've gotten a wonderful, though admittedly awfully-earned vacation, but it's been no party, let me say that, because anything that I can say to get this weight off of my chest is going to be much appreciated, Ms. Arabela."

"You're welcome, Electra, and please, call me Jet. That's what my everyone ever called me, on account of my hair- jet black, like the night. If you ever need anyone to talk you, well, I get the feeling that you already know, but my door's always open. Feel free to come in to talk, I'm usually not too busy, seeing as almost every student will, when they get the choice their ninth grade year, choose music over art. So yeah, feel free to drop in at any time. No offense meant, but I think you're going to need it today, Electra."

"Yeah, I hate to say it, but I agree with you there, Ms. Arabela- sorry, Jet. You know, I'm going to need to run to class, or Mrs. Markutz will have my thin hide drying on the rack in his office before the end of the period, and I'm  _so_  going to need to run to get there! Crap, crap, crap, I'm screwed!" I feel that hot tide rising up in me again, the angry wave of anxiety threatening to spill over.

"Relax, Electra," Ms. Arabela says. It's going to take a looooong time for me to get used to calling her Jet. For whatever reason, it reminds me of some ridiculous fanfic I read quite a long time ago called 'DEFCON 5' by some nutjob who went by the pen name of Wrong Password. It was a piece of garbage, so I don't know why I'm thinking about it now, especially now, when what I need to do is focus on the task at hand- getting through this day without being swarmed by angry hoards of bitch-beasts, but of course, I can't say those words out loud. I may be not quite right in the head, but I certainly have no desire to go back down to Mrs. McGowan's office and see the blood stains on the carpet from where I leaned against the radiator behind her desk, slowly bleeding out, when I found that I was kneeling in blood.

Yeah, just plain and simple, no, that's not going to happen, and so I need to go. I tell that to Ms. Arabela- Jet- of my concern, but instead of acknowledging that yes, I really should be getting on my way because I'm going to be late, she looks at me quizzically, almost like I would imagine a fox doing if it were trying to pick out a sound that it heard.

"What?" I ask, feeling self-conscious again. "Is it something I said? What is it?"

"As a matter of fact, Electra, yes, it is something you said-"

"I knew it!" I cut her off, feeling frustrated that those people I hold most near and dear to me are turning against me. "You too?"

"No, Electra," she says, placing her head between her hands and sighing. "I wasn't trying to go after you like that. What I was trying to say to you, Miss Stehlen-Wilde, is that you have art with me first period today, seeing as it's an even day, a day four, if you want to be exact about it, so you don't need to go anywhere, because here is where you need to be. So, Electra," she continues, the expression painted on her face a mix of perkiness along with a smidge of sadness. "I don't understand what's going through your head right now, Electra, but I want to help you, I really do, I promise. Class is about to start, so are you willing to stay after for a while and talk with me about what you've gone through?"

"Sure," I say, and just then, the monotone  _boop_  that signals the start of first period interrupts our conversation, and the girl who reads the announcements, Judy, I think her name is, begins to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, just like she's done every school morning for the last six years, and just like  _I've_  done every morning that I've been in school for the last twelve, I stand silent. I have absolutely no damn clue why we're supposed to pledge our loyalties to a country that claims that it supports and defends "liberty and justice for all," but how is there either liberty or justice in a country that can't seem to understand how to give and defend either.

After that, there come several minutes of announcements, all of which I tune out. I really don't care what they have to say, but what I  _do_ care about is getting through them so that way I can have this period to talk with Jet (yeah, this is going to be a while) about what I'll need to do to catch up on the month's worth of sketchbook assignments and various other projects that I'm sure that I'm going to need to get done as fast as I can, because as best as I can guess, it's going to be coming damn near to the end of the third marking quarter, and I'm already juggling insane course loads in every other subject, plus the fact that none of my teachers was smart enough to send any work home with anyone so that way I could send it back in.

Ugh, no, I really shouldn't be that critical of them, I hope it's a better reason than just that they felt bad for me, I'm no weakling. I may have been shot, but come on, people, I've never been what anyone could describe as a weakling by any stretch of the imagination, except for where I am, and that's when I keep ragging on myself over and over and over again in my head. I would say that if there were to ever be a World Series of Nagging created, I would sweep every year. But here's hoping it'll all change for the better, seeing as I'm the only one in this art class, so I figure why wait until next period to tell my teacher about what happened when I was out, I mean, it's only six minutes after eight, and seeing how first period class goes until quarter of nine, I'll have more than enough time to talk with her about my extended leave of absence.

"Well, Electra," Ms. A says, how was your time off?"

"It was okay, Jet," I sigh. "I realize that I probably seem a little bit better off now than I ever have, really, somewhat saner, a little more in control of myself, but let me tell you, if there's one thing I've learned from this insane mess, other than how much pieces of lead hurt when they burrow through you, it's that appearances can be deceiving. No, scratch that, they can be worse than deceiving, they can be deadly, and I think that I would be a bit of an expert on that subject, would you say?"

She laughs slightly, and this time, I don't feel offended. "I can, and I most certainly do, Electra. What happened between you and Lylah, anyways?"

"Promise you won't tell anyone else about what I tell you?" I ask, crossing my fingers and praying to that  _someone_  up there that they're listening.

"Yes, Electra, I promise you that I won't say a word to anyone else. Not a single other person, not a single other word."

"Thank you. Now, where do you want me to start? There's a shit-ton of stories to tell, and they ain't gonna be pretty."

"Well, how about your experiences that day? Those seem to be the things that are truly eating at you, Electra, so why not start there?"

"Well," I say, "and I realize that I'm going to sound like a cliche here, which I hate, yet at the same time can't be helped in the slightest, but that day was a normal day, one just like every other that had come before it. But-" I say, holding my hands down in front of me in a  _stop whatever you're doing and listen_  gesture, "after that, no day would be normal. "I had no idea what Lylah had had all cooked up and ready to serve, and I have even less of an idea of how in the world she managed to get the gun and all the ammo into the building without having set off the metal detectors. But I'm getting off track.

"Anyways, as I was saying, that day didn't seem to be unusual in any way, and it was the one day of school that I had actually been looking forward to after having to slog through a week and a half's worth of final papers, exams, and all that jazz, a day where I would be able to just sit down and relax and relish in the peace and quiet of having no one else around me in the auditorium, but noooo, that wasn't going to happen, as we now all know, but you know what was going to happen? Lylah was going to spring up out from behind the curtain on stage, ready to wreak havoc and quite a number of bloodstains upon the upholstery. But that wasn't really the roughest part about the whole thing. No, getting shot was the relatively easy part. Now, before I say anything else, can I please close the door? I don't want word of what I'm going to say next catching the breeze. You can't keep a single secret from any single person in this damn building, so here's hoping that I can keep the first secret that's ever been heard of in this building, eh?"

"Sure, Electra," Jet says. "I'll take care of the door, just wait here for me, okay?" With that, she takes her ring of keys out of the left pocket of her pants and locking and closing the door to the room behind her. After that, she heads back to her desk and drops her head to the desk. I wonder what's up with her. I haven't ever seen her quite  _this_ tired...

"Are you okay there? You don't look too hot...Should I get you anything? A glass of water?"

"No, Electra," she sighs. "I don't need a glass of water. I'm just worn beyond the point of exhaustion is all. I hope that I won't go crazy, but I get the sneaking feeling that I just might lose it."

"Why do you say that, Ms. A?"

By way of an answer, she turns to face me full-on, emerald-green eyes drilling into the backs of mine, an almost manic energy overtaking them. Then she sighs, and that light dwindles away until I'm left looking at the tired husk of someone who has just had enough after all of their life has passed them by and they're left watching that train leave dust clouds down the broken road of their hopes and dreams.

Wait, wait, wait, waitwaitwait. Hold up for just a cotton-pickin' minute. What the hell is that look supposed to mean? What the actual hell?

"You alright there?" I ask. "You don't look so hot."

"Yeah, I'm fine," she says, waving her hand. "It's just that I had the same sort of thing happen to me back when I went to school here."

_Wait, what?_

**Author's Note:**

> My NaNoWriMo project for March 2018.


End file.
